


rainstorms come from the north

by nirvhannahcornell (josiebelladonna)



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Framing Story, Free Skate (Figure Skating), Ice Skating, Interracial Relationship, Lesbian Sex, Magical Realism, Mentions of Myth & Folklore, Not Suitable/Safe For Work, Poetry, PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics, References to Drugs, Sneaking Around
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:01:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22869805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiebelladonna/pseuds/nirvhannahcornell
Summary: Following the untimely death of their father, sisters Meredith and Michelle go to live with their racist uncle while their mother tends to his affairs overseas. However, their misery is short-lived as they meet two sweet, ethereal figure skaters, both of them hailing from Japan. But they must keep their relationships a secret, or the worst might happen.
Kudos: 1





	1. Somewhere in Bellevue

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this during the Winter Olympics a couple of years ago and never shared it with anyone: I was kinda obsessed with figure skating (as well as curling and hockey). Started life as a het story, but I scrapped it and changed it up to a girl x girl one because I wanted to explore femme-slash a bit.  
> I was going through my thumb drive and I found I never deleted it, much to relief because for a little while, I thought it was gone forever.  
> The title, by the way, is a line from 311's song Amber! 💜

_Michelle's perspective_

It all happened so fast. The image of the rain falling onto the ice rink still haunts the recesses of my memory. It may as well have been raining blood. I can still hear Coach Clarke's panicked voice as I phoned him and told him Meredith needed to go to the hospital first to fix her broken nose and Sakura had run out of inhalant. He told me to tell the bus driver to take us to the nearest hospital downtown.

Sara and I huddle down next to one another two seats behind the bus driver. I stay next to the window just in the case someone peers inside to see what she's doing even though it's totally dark outside. Every so often, a little flash of light from the head lamp reflects up onto the bus window and throws me a bit. At one point, I finally turn my head to face her.

Tendrils of her curly dark brown hair hang down over the square blue white light of the head lamp: the light reflects back onto her face so she resembles to a geisha rag doll. She gently rubs the blades and the soles of the skates to assure they're completely clean. I know these are Sakura's skates as they still have little faint red speckling on the soles which return to my line of sight every time she lifts her head just a little bit to make sure they're clean. I am not sure if she's either in complete concentration or if she's still angry at me.

I nervously swallow as she sighs through her nose.

“Are you mad at me?” I ask her in a low voice.

“Hm?” she lifts her gaze to look at me.

“Are you mad at me?”

“Not really, no,” she flatly replies in her light Japanese accent. “I mean, I am a bit but I understand now why you never told me about him. But I can assure you that I will never hold it against you, though. We needed to defend ourselves. He was going to kill us.”

“That's true. They can't nail us if it's out of self defense, even if the self defense is as odd as it was. All I care about is getting Sakura and Meredith to the hospital.”

“Me, too. And if anyone asks why the blades on the skates were cleaned, it is because they needed to be cleaned. Sakura and I take good care of our skates because it is needed for Korea.”

She lifts her head to the seat in front of us.

“How is she, Akari?”

She then asks Meredith, who's in the seat in front of her with Sakura, that same question. Meredith says something to her in turn.

“She is still breathing but she needs her medicine, though,” she gravely confesses.

Sara and I glance at each other and I run a hand through my hair.

“I can still see him bleeding,” she confesses in a low voice.

“I can, too. I can still hear him screaming.”

“Are you sure that rink—the rink in Brennen—is no longer in use?”

“Positive. We drive by there all the time: there is literally no one there, except for you two. I'm also sure, that at some point, the ice will melt away which will then wash away any evidence that might get us busted in the future. We'll be alright, I promise.”

The bus turns off somewhere in the heart of Seattle. The surface streets are illuminated with orange yellow lights and only a few people stride along the sidewalks in their jackets.

Sara switches off the headlamp before taking it off. I peer up at all the tall brightly lit buildings lining the streets as we catch the light green and turn left onto another street. Soon we pull into the wide driveway of the hospital.

The driver tugs on the parking brake, switches off the engine, and pushes a button to open the sliding doors. He assists Akari in carrying Sakura off the bus. Meredith advises the driver to keep watch on her laptop as he lets Akari and Sakura go to the front sliding doors of the hospital. He assures her it will be safe with him.

Meredith keeps the wad of tissue to her nose to keep it from bleeding anymore as she follows them into the hospital. Sara and I follow the four of them off the bus and into the emergency room.

Akari tells the nurses at the front desk about Sakura's condition and how this whole time since we left Oregon, she has been descending further and further into an asthma attack. One nurse calls one of the doctors and soon they help her into a room down the hall. Sara and I follow Meredith and another nurse down the opposite brightly lit white hallway to a small clean smelling room.

“I accidentally got punched in the face,” she answers when the nurse asks her how she broke her nose. It is sort of the truth: it was an accident but it wasn't her fault. Sara and I stay with her as the nurse cleans up the blood, cleans the wound, and places the bandage over the bridge of her nose. When she leaves the room to check up on Akari and Sakura, the three of us huddle together on the surface of the plastic bed. Sara and I hold hands; Meredith brushes away a tear.

“It's okay, Meredith,” I assure her, “she'll be okay. She's getting more medicine as we speak. It's just a little asthma attack. She'll be okay. She'll be okay.” I embrace her as I feel the tears well up for myself. This was my fault. None of this would have happened if it wasn't for me.

I feel Sara embrace us from behind. I stare off at the wall for what feels like forever until the nurse strides back into the room.

“She's okay,” she announces with a nervous smile, “we gave her some formoterol to open up her bronchial tubes and she also needed a refill in her rescue inhaler. We caught her just in time, too. Her older sister said the five of you came all the way from Portland?”

“Just north of Portland,” I correct her, “like we were crossing the bridge over the Columbia and we had just crossed the state line when she began wheezing really hard. We're actually from the little town of Brennen, twenty miles north of Salem. It was—pretty scary to say in the least.”

We stay in the hospital for another full hour until the nurses release us. Akari and Meredith help Sakura aboard the bus just shortly after midnight. She rubs her eyes as the two of them help her into the very front seat behind the driver. Meredith lightly kisses her on the lips before she takes the seat next to her. She keeps her eyes closed as she leans her head against the window: I can't see what Meredith is doing.

Akari takes the seat across the aisle from them whereas Sara and I huddle down together two rows behind her.

The bus lumbers into downtown Seattle and onto the floating toll bridge crossing the lake. The two of us silently stare out the black waters the whole time into Bellevue. At one point, I feel her resting her chin on my shoulder and placing her hand on my upper arm. I lightly touch the back of her hand; my long black nails brush against her soft, smooth skin. I vowed to always be careful not to scratch her, but luckily, I had washed my hands before we left Brennen for Portland.

I think about everything that happened but at the same time I think about nothing. I can only imagine what is going through Sara's mind, or Sakura, Meredith, or Akari's minds right then. I can only imagine what is currently going through my mom's mind especially once we tell her everything that happened, that is if we're able to tell her everything. I have no clue how or if she is coming home. Before we left Brennen, I felt a tiny glimmer of hope that Thumbelina could do something, but she seems out of the question at this point. The only thing I can do right there, sitting on the bus with my Japanese girlfriend crossing the bridge to the other side of Seattle in the middle of the night, is internally pray Mom will be alright and that she can find her way back home.

We roll into the tightly woven forest of brightly lit buildings making up Bellevue and turn off the freeway. Sara rests the side of her head against my shoulder blade as we halt at a stoplight. Sakura coughs, a loud almost barking cough, once, twice, five times, before she lets out a low internal groan. Akari says something to her in Japanese. She groans again and then, over the grumble of the bus engine, I hear Meredith whisper, “it's okay, baby. We're almost there—”

The light turns green and the bus lumbers ahead towards the brightly lit hotel the five of us are staying at.

“Good thing practice does not start until Monday,” Sara notes as Sakura coughs again, “she needs to rest her body and her lungs.”

“I'm sure Coach Clarke and Mr. Kobayashi would understand, too,” I point out, “they're kind enough. If you're sick and injured, you're sick and injured.”

We park at the curb in front of the entrance of the warmly lit front lobby. The driver pushes a button and the doors slide open. After she hoists her black leather computer bag over her shoulder, Meredith helps Sakura first off the bus; Akari follows, then lastly Sara and myself.

We check into our rooms at close to twelve thirty; Meredith and Akari never let go of Sakura as we step into the brightly lit spacious elevator heading up to the fifth floor. I watch Sakura lay her head against Meredith's shoulder. Sara, on the other hand, huddles close to me; I feel her shiver inside of her jacket.

“Are you cold?” I ask her in a low voice.

“I hate elevators,” she bluntly replies, “I have never liked to ride in one alone. I want to be next to someone—be it you, my mother, or even Sako herself—in the case one cable snaps and the whole thing crashes down.”

 _Jesus_ , I think to myself. _Well, I suppose that's a part of being a part of someone's life. You're going to speak about your worst nightmares._

The upward facing arrow above the door goes dark as we reach the fifth floor. The heavy doors slide open and the five of us bustle into the cozy level with off white walls and a rich dark red carpet.

“This way,” Akari points to our right and we amble down the hallway towards the two rooms opposite from each other. Sara and I stay in the room on the right side of the hallway, whereas Meredith, Sakura, and Akari take the one of the left. I hug Meredith so hard. She and I have been through so much together: as it stands, for all I know, she is the only family I have right now. I have to take care of her for as long as I need to, until we find a way to bring Mom home.

I hug Akari, too, as Sara unlocks the door.

“Are you guys going to be okay?” I ask as I give Sakura a hug.

“Of course!” answers Meredith in a nasally voice. “We're just goig to be right here—I'll be up writig everythig dowd.”

“You're going to write about everything that happened?” I am shocked.

“Yes,” she replies, completely unfazed. “Bisha, you know be. I have to write. I deed to write otherwise I copletely lose it. I cad tell you this, though: I doubt addyode will want to publish the word of the other side of the spectrub after everythig that's happeded. I'll share it with the five of us and baybe Bob, that is, if we cad find her. I'll set up by combuter and I'll write all dight log if I have to. I can't really see byself sleeping all too well with this, addyways. I'll let her and Akari sleep but if you or Sara deed addythig, just dock od the door.”

I hug her once more before Sara and I enter the room. She switches on the bedside lamp next to the queen size bed with the floral comforter and sets down her overnight bag as I close the door. The very sight of her overnight bag makes me miss my camera, that beautiful three hundred dollar camera I had had since I was eleven, when I decided to go into photography. I am still in disbelief about what happened to it.

We come to a consensus that we only feel like sleeping so she changes her clothes; she decides to take a shower in the morning. I take off my shoes and my jeans, and then we climb into bed together. I switch off the light and she holds me close under the covers. I tuck my head under her chin and the two of us snuggle down in the clean white sheets and the darkness.

_Meredith's perspective_

Sakura rolls over onto her side in the bed closest to the wall. She nearly fell asleep when she removed her sneakers, and she had not even bothered to take off her jeans by the time she collapsed onto her back on the clean white bedsheet.

Akari removes her jeans and puts them into her overnight bag before climbing into the neighboring bed, the one closest to the filmy black and blue drapes.

I sit down at the desk at the foot of her bed and take my dark red laptop out of the silver leather bag. I plug in the cable and the transformer when Akari clicks off the light.

“Oh, pardon me,” she says, “I—forgot you are going to stay up.”

“Do, do, it's okay,” I assure her, my nose absolutely aching me, “I have by flashlight id by purse add I'll turd the laptop away so you cad sleep.”

In the dim light, I see her nod her head in affirmation before she lays her head down onto the pillow. I open my laptop and switch it on. I think about everything that had happened before now as I watch the computer start up. I figure I should start from the beginning, the story of my family, my sister and me and how we met our girlfriends and how we all ended up this way.

I open up to a brand new document, a brand new page, and hopefully, a brand new life.


	2. Father of Mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"Father of mine,  
>  tell me where have you been?  
> You know I just closed my eyes;  
> my whole world disappeared."_  
> -"Father of Mine", Everclear

My name is Meredith Rossi. I'm eighteen years old but I feel as though I have been alive for a thousand years.

My father died from an overdose when I was seventeen, three months prior to my high school graduation. No one had a clue he had been addicted to heroin, not even my mother. He always seemed so lucid and so straightforward with everyone: he was a novelist who had already written five novels up until that point. Two days before, his agent called and said this next novel, his fifth novel, was going to make bestseller lists in the United States, Canada, England, France, Belgium, Australia, and even Japan upon upcoming releases in mid April.

We were going to be rich. We were going to be famous. I was going to be the out-and-proud lesbian, mixed race daughter of a bestselling author.

I still remember that morning, waking up, hearing Mom weeping while she sat on the step of the staircase. She was so torn that she never said anything to me or my elder sister Michelle until the two of us awoke to find her. She never exactly told us because she blathered in jumbled, disoriented French and maybe a phrase or two of Spanish and Italian, words and phrases that made no sense whatsoever. Michelle, or Misha as I have always called her, had to open the door of the bedroom to behold my father's corpse on the floor next to the bed with a massive glass syringe jutting out from his right arm.

I remember watching her fall to her knees and then clasp her hands to her mouth.

I only saw his body stretched out upon the floor, completely still, and his handsome face distorted from sheer agony with streams of foamy pinkish blood oozing from one corner of his mouth, to know what he had done. The coroners later told us that it was unclear if the cause of his death was a massive blood clot inside his lungs brought on by a lethal injection of black tar heroin, or the fact he had used a dirty needle, which in turn caused the blood clot.

Misha and I merely conceded our father suffocated.

My father was a gentle giant, standing tall over Misha and me while holding Mom in one arm. He had somewhat long, shoulder length dark brown, nearly black, wavy hair and smooth skin with a weird olive undertone, both of which Misha and I both inherited. He had lovely olive green eyes, a perfectly straight nose, and almost always had a sparse black mustache and a goatee; we get our brown eyes and our middle statures from Mom. He always ate like he was starving to death but for as long as I could remember, he managed to remain slim.

He loved the three of us more than anything in the whole world, even after Misha and I both came out as gay.

The story of how he met Mom was something straight from a fairytale. At that time, he was just a short story writer: he was on a conference trip in Paris. He saw a young woman, a student, struggling to cross the street as her arms were full of textbooks. He offered to help her by taking a couple of the books. They introduced themselves to one another: he told her the first thing he loved about her was her name, Marine Duchenne.

They stayed in contact with one another even after he returned to the United States and this was well before the Internet mushroomed into what it is now. They would write letters to one another and often times, they did what they could to keep it in secret because her parents disapproved of her seeking interest in a half Italian, half Mexican man who lived on the West Coast of America. But they persisted and eventually, she told him she was moving to the United States. She moved to Bakersfield, where he lived at the time and yet he was considering moving farther north, to the Willamette Valley of Oregon.

They married on the California coast, a small private wedding at his parents' house, before they moved up to Salem. She earned her citizenship and her green card in Oregon and, nine months afterward, my sister was born on the twenty seventh of September. They had put down roots for another two years until I entered the world on the twenty seventh of April.

Misha and I were his pride and joy: he always encouraged us to follow our hearts towards our wildest dreams. She had a love of art since she was three years old. She often had drawing pads and her desk drawers were always full of pencils, pens, markers, and those big white erasers. Her favorite artist was, and always will be, Frida Kahlo; she always said she wanted to be as in touch with herself as Frida.

She never developed a deep interest in photography until we were in elementary school when she checked out a book of photography from Ansel Adams, just out of sheer curiosity, from the school library.

I think it was about that time when Dad decided to write his first novel. It took him a year—and at that point, Misha entered fifth grade—but he got the book published by the time she entered sixth grade. He had earned enough money to buy us a new car and her a brand new camera.

I had always loved writing: I started writing poetry when I was about five years old. I had always loved Oscar Wilde, the poets of the Victorian era, and also poets from eastern Asia; every Friday at show and tell in first grade, I shared a new poem I wrote that week for the class. It wasn't until I reached third grade when I decided to be a story writer like my dad. He encouraged me to do it but at the same time he told me there will be days in which the inspiration will seem to have run dry, but he told me to persist regardless of the feeling. One thing he told me that will always stay with me is “the inspiration is there, but sometimes you just have to give it bit of a nudge. You can't silence a machine gun.” He said that to me on my tenth birthday as he gave me my first personal journal, which I set aside for poetry.

Sometimes I weep just at the thought of how much I love my dad, like the very thought of my love for my dad sends my heart into a frenzy and it weighs down upon my chest like a dead weight. (I have tears in my eyes writing this right now!)

There were times in which he and I butted heads but we always patched it up afterwards. I'll always love my mom and my sister, but my dad was my dad. He was my first best friend. There will be other men who enter my life but he can never replaced.

The day he died was the day Misha and I wondered if we could continue with our dreams of being artists. She considered selling her camera online to the highest bidder and then she would use the money to put gas in her truck. I had no clue what to do with any of my journals, in particular the one he gave me. My well had run dry; both colleges Misha and I both applied to had rejected us which further added to our situation. I had even stopped reading books from that day in March to the beginning of October.

In that time, I could only cope by resorting to eating. Misha and I had always been slender, except it was more so the case with her; when my body developed, Mom often remarked I was built like a curvy model, whereas Misha took on a more, what she called “waiflike” figure, meaning she's far more slender and pale. After Dad died, I felt my appetite shoot through the roof. I ate something all the time. What was so strange about it was I never got all that fat, but rather the weight spread to every inch of my body: that is not to say a great deal of it did not go right to my waist, though. So while I don't look it, I gained nearly seventy pounds, going from one hundred fifty eight to two hundred twenty seven pounds, in the past year alone. My hips widened, my chest enlarged, my belly went from being nearly flat to almost overhanging on all my jeans, and my face became a near perfect round shape. I developed stretch marks in the weirdest of places, like underneath my arms.

Misha and I both watched our skin wash out from the Mediterranean olive undertone to a pallid white tone, as white as ghosts. She had always grown out her nails to where they resembled claws, but she began painting her them in more earth tones and in particular, black. We both began wearing more black and white in general; I found love in floral prints but also lace and silk. Before Dad died, I had seen Misha in all of two midriff shirts: afterwards, she wore almost all the time. She and I also began wearing more hats, more scarves, more boots, and more sunglasses, more pieces of clothing to make us stand apart from the crowd but also keep us from being seen. The two of us didn't want to be seen, that is until Mom asked us what our father would have wanted for us.

“He would have wanted us to continue,” duly replied Misha after thinking about it for a minute. “He would have wanted to me to continue in photography and Meredith in writing.”

“Right! _Maintenant, photographie quelque chose pour moi et ta soeur, ma cherie!_ ” commanded Mom, shoving her camera back into Misha's hands. She turned to me with a pen in hand and picked up the notepad from the side of the refrigerator and handed both to me.

“ _Écris un poème pour moi et ta soeur, ma cherie_.”

It was actually a good thing she pushed us back into it because shortly afterwards, she informed us she would have to fly to France and Belgium to tend to the conferences and paperwork Dad had left in his wake because his agent lived in Strasbourg. His novel, when it was finally published in early October after being pushed back, began winning awards and earning high praise; as a result, Mom had to act as his proxy. She worried about us; she knew we would be fine alone and we both were old enough but she worried about us running out of money especially since I was fresh out of high school and Misha could not find a job if it saved her. She asked our Uncle Martin, who lived twenty miles north of Salem in Brennen—a town with a community college, a bunch of old houses, a few coffee shops, and a skating rink which was closed half of the time—if we could stay with him for a while, at least until she had everything tithed over and we could inherit Dad's earnings. He reluctantly agreed because he was strapped for cash himself, but neither of us wanted to leave Oregon even though we hadn't seen our grandparents in several years at that point. He also lived close by so we could return to our house in Orchard Heights any time we wanted for something we needed.

In the mean time, Misha and I enrolled in the community college's general art program. The three of us agreed most of Dad's money would go to both our later education: we both began researching on Portland State University about a week before Mom had to leave for Europe. I decided to carry on Dad's legacy and be a novelist myself but I had my doubts. He always seemed to have a spark, a miasma of brilliance, thus the words would just come pouring out of him. He had the strangest ability to weave words and have the story come together in such a beautiful way: one of my favorite reviews of his books was one describing them as artworks. I hoped the creative writing class at the college that quarter would help me uncover any inherited brilliance because I wanted to do it and I wanted to do it for my father. Misha said I have the memory for novel writing so I might do it regardless of how I ever feel about it.

Misha and I packed up most of our clothes, including a pink and purple patchwork quilt Mom had given me for my thirteenth birthday, and we locked up the house: she gave us both the spare keys in any case either of us had to make a brief return for something. We drove in Dad's dark gray pick up truck with a camper shell up to Brennen, to the fourth house on the left side of Fourth Street.

Uncle Martin's house resembled a three story cabin, albeit one that was on its last legs. The wood comprising the outside walls was nearly pitch black and one of the front windows needed to be replaced as the pane had shattered. The roof loomed against the light gray overcast sky. We parked in the slate gray driveway before the small garage with an off white door with a dent right square in the middle: Mom walked us up to the front step and she reached out to ring the doorbell. The front door had a black metal doorknob that Misha joked was from the dawn of time because it had very little coating on the outside and looked as though it could fall off inside someone's hand at the worst possible time.

Mom rung the doorbell once more when we were met with silence.

“I 'ope 'e is 'ome,” she grumbled. I glanced off to the left at the turret on the left side of the house, which stretched up towards the sky with the third story of the house.

 _That must be the stairway to the attic_ , I thought to myself.

The door creaked open and Uncle Martin poked out his head. Where Dad was the gentle giant and the successful younger brother, Uncle Martin was the feisty short man and the older brother who struggled with finding any success whatsoever. He looked at all three of us in the eye with his steely green blue eyes which seemed to bug out from his narrow face; he had thin black hair which he had styled into a combover and had a waiflike body much like Misha, except he wore older clothing, clothing that had to be retired at some point otherwise it would unravel at the seams.

“Hello, Marine,” he flatly greeted her in a scratchy voice, “—ladies.”

“'Ello, Martin!” she jovially replied. “Forgive me again for calling you—er—so soon. It is just—er—”

“Yeah, yeah, last minute bullshit. Come on in, girls—Meredith and Michelle—”

Misha and I picked up our bags and followed him into the house. We strode into the narrow front foyer which had a shabby gray carpet and off white walls; to our left was the living room with a blue gray couch facing the black fireplace with a red brick hearth and a wooden coffee table with short stubby legs. Next to the fireplace was the wiry spiral staircase ascending the turret.

The foyer became a short hallway which connected the living room with the kitchen, the downstairs bathroom, the door to the garage, the laundry room, and another door on the wall which appeared to be sealed shut. Martin told us it was a closet for an ironing board and yet he didn't own an ironing board.

“Where are our rooms?” asked Misha.

“Up that staircase in the living room,” answered Martin, still in that flat tone of voice, “your rooms are on the second floor.”

“What about the third?” I continued.

“What about the third? That's the attic.”

“Well, Martin, we should leave,” suggested Mom, tapping her wrist watch.

“Oh, that's right! I'm driving you to the airport—I still can't understand why I could've just picked them up there, though—”

“My daughters need a car, Martin—” Mom and Uncle Martin began to bicker as they headed out to the garage. Once the door closed, Misha and I turned to one another.

“Shall we go upstairs?” she suggested. I nodded and then we entered the living room towards the spiral staircase. I hoisted my book bag over my shoulder and my suitcase up to my chest: I will give my extra pounds one thing, and that is I became physically stronger. I could lift things that would make my arms quiver when I was thinner. I reached the first landing before Misha and stared on at the short dimly lit corridor before me: two white doors lined either side.

“So which room should we take?” I wondered aloud when she came up from behind me.

“I'll take the one here,” she offered, pointing at the door closest to us, “it's close to the stairs.”

I glanced over at the two doors to our right: the one at the far end stood wide open, but the one closest to us, the one across from her room, seemed to be barred shut like the door downstairs.

“Misha,” I began.

“Yes?” she responded as she started to open her door.

“If Uncle Martin says the one door downstairs is a closet for an ironing board—and supposedly this one is, too—why is the door sealed closed like that?”

She turned to face the door and raised an eyebrow when she realized what I was talking about.

“I—I don't know,” she confessed in a low voice. “I really have no clue. I'm not sure if he'd be willing to fully tell us, either, given his chilly greeting and all.”

I helped her into her room, a small room with bright light gray walls, a twin bed, a small desk underneath a tiny window with filmy white curtains, and a small closet. She did the same for me in the bedroom next door, which looked exactly the same except Martin had pressed a small oak dresser against the wall before the foot of the bed as there was no closet.

After I spread my quilt over the bed, I left the door slightly ajar and stripped off my shirt. I kept on my black lace bra, which Mom and Misha bought for me when I was gaining weight, as I lay on the bed on my back. I decided to be within my own essence when no one was looking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (forgot how much of a trip around the world this thing is oof)  
> French words:
> 
> "Maintenant, photographie quelque chose pour moi et ta soeur, ma cherie" = "now, photograph something for me and your sister, my love"
> 
> "Écris un poème pour moi et ta soeur, ma cherie" = "write a poem for me and your sister, my love"


	3. Home is a Strange Place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"Why did you have to go?  
>  The years were all a storm:  
> me, I rode it clean.  
> Without roots, you got washed away."_  
> -"Home is a Strange Place", Paw

“They're sealed shut because I have no ironing board,” explained Uncle Martin. We had sat down for dinner that evening: he brought home some microwavable food from the grocery store down the street. He had sent Misha a text asking what we wanted: she and I both asked for lasagna whereas he bought himself a quiche. The mention of that made me miss my mom as I knew I wouldn't be eating any of her homemade quiches any time soon.

The dining room and the kitchen were combined into a single room nestled in between the living room and the bathroom. The table was large enough to seat the three of us, although Martin had to drag a rickety wooden chair down from the third floor for Misha to sit at.

She and I crowded around the other side of the small wooden table across from him as we picked at our dinners. I missed Mom's cooking after I blew on a bite of the hot lasagna and put it into my mouth.

She and Dad would have made us lasagna by hand, but then again I understood why Uncle Martin was so keen on buying us dinner at such a swift pace, especially once he launched into the story of why we were unable to see him so much.

“I was fired from a pretty lucrative job. You ladies know I was an attorney, right?”

“Vaguely, yes,” answered Michelle; it dawned on me right then that Dad hardly ever spoke about Uncle Martin's life.

“Well, I was an attorney. I had my law degree and everything. I used to work at this law office downtown, for several years, I might say. I tried to convince your dad to get a degree and get a real job there but he seemed happy writing simple fairytales—” I squirmed a bit when he said that. Dad made a lot of money writing those simple fairytales, Uncle Martin; that's pretty uncalled for.

“—anyways, I got fired for doing something without receiving commission, or 'pro bono' as we call it. Add to that, it was supposedly illegal on top of that.”

“What'd you do?” I asked him as I took another bite.

“I represented a woman who was living off of welfare and—I can't really go into the details of it because of confidentiality surrounding a legal case, but it basically morphed into a case of welfare fraud and I, unknowingly, got involved right in the crosshairs. My old boss, an older Japanese woman named Yui Nuratami, was pretty upset, I guess you could say. She fired me within an hour of finding out I was caught up in the midst of it. Showed me the door the second I tried to step inside to fetch my things. Told me to get lost in Japanese, even. Lost my source of income and the respect of most of my colleagues, except for a small few who were with me from the first day of law school. As for the woman, well, let's just say she and I banded together once the charges were dropped.”

“Aw, you guys are together?” concluded Misha.

“Yes, ma'am. It's cool, too, because she used to work at a strip joint for peanuts and she finally pulled herself out of the gutter. The other day she told me she's going back to school—I reckon at the city college you girls are going to, if I remember correctly—when's school start?”

“Monday morning,” I promptly replied, “for the both of us. I have world history and she has photography.”

“Jesus! Well, if you see her, remember her name is Thumbelina because she used to 'do things' with her thumbs, to put it simply. After I got fired and lost my river of income, she said my old boss made a huge mistake. I have to agree with her, too: it's her loss that she just had to rid of me.”

“What was she like?” continued Misha.

“Nuratami? Thrifty. Hovering. Nagging. Annoying. Emotionally chilly. A show off, especially with her intelligence and her competence. Really picky in who she interacted with, like she'd be really nice to someone and then be really frosty with me or one of my close colleagues. Paranoid, too, like in retrospect at the end there, even before I took on that pro bono case, she often suspected me of stealing things when I never took anything from that office and when I did, I always gave it back. I soon learned that most of her people are like her anyways.”

That made me squirm even more, especially since some of my favorite poetry and literature hailed from Japan. We sank into silence for the rest of dinner until I finally got up to put the plastic plate in the garbage. I adjusted my shirt when I stood to my feet.

“Meredith, what you got there?” demanded Uncle Martin, pointing at the roll of fat on my waist. I set a hand on the spot above my navel.

“It's my belly, what else would it be?”

“You know, you really shouldn't eat so quickly because you end up eating too much and gaining a lot of weight. Now that I remember, you're pretty solid, like big boned, not like your sister here. I'm afraid you'll gain too much and you're getting pretty chunky as is.”

I gaped at Misha, who was nearly done with her lasagna, and the baffled expression on her face. I had no idea how to respond to that mainly because it was just fact to me. I could only shake my head and trot into the kitchen to put the tin in the garbage pail and the fork in the small gray dishwasher. I felt him staring at my body as I headed back upstairs to my room.

I kept the door closed as I sank down on the floor next to the foot of my bed. I bowed my head. I could hardly bring my legs closer to my body. It was my worst fear come true: someone close to me, in this case a relative, began to see me as one not worthy of loving. It had happened to me several times before in middle school and now it was happening with Uncle Martin.

I closed my eyes. I wanted my mom back with me. I wanted my dad back with me and then Misha and I never would have come here. I replayed that scene and the expression on Misha's face when he said that to me. Something told me she wanted to say something to him but fell short.

I could only cry into my arms. I quietly wept right there on the floor of this strange place, this strange place I was supposed to call home for the time being.


	4. The Fire Bomb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"Fire is on my trail  
>  and he's after me.  
> Hope it don't get here  
> before I get where I'm going.  
> I gotta get where I'm going;  
> take off my mask to breathe."_  
> -"Fire Bomb", Rihanna

I awoke on Monday morning at seven o'clock sharp to a gray sky and a chilly wind making a low, eerie whistle through a gap in the window. I rolled onto my side with my eyes still closed.

On one hand, I wanted to stay in bed all day long because the quilt still carried the warm aroma of Mom's perfume. I missed her and I wanted to see her again; when I lay perfectly still, I picked up a tiny glimmer of Dad's cologne. I bowed my head even further down underneath the covers until I heard a soft knock on my door.

“Meredith? Meredith, are you up?”

But then on the other hand, I needed to leave this house for the whole day to get away from Uncle Martin. I sighed through my nose before lifting up my head from the covers.

“It's open, Misha,” I called out in a broken voice. I rolled onto my back as she opened the door.

“Hey—why aren't you up yet? Breakfast is nearly ready and class starts at nine. I thought you wanted to look glamorous for first day of freshman year.”

“I do,” I groggily assured her, “I just want to lay underneath the quilt for a little while longer because it smells like Mom and Dad.”

“Let me see—” She quietly padded across the carpet. I sensed her leaning down over the quilt and taking a whiff.

“Oh, my God, it does. More Mom, though. I can just barely pick up Dad's cologne.”

She and I were both silent for a brief minute until she lightly padded on the edge of the bed.

“Anyways, c'mon. There's coffee waiting for you and I made your favorite: crepes with blueberries and powdered sugar with a couple of sausage patties.”

I opened my eyes right as she climbed to her feet and headed out the door into the hallway; I noticed she was already dressed. I gingerly sat upright and ran my hand through my hair before sliding out of bed. I decided to take a shower after breakfast as I headed downstairs to the kitchen.

Misha told me Uncle Martin had left about half an hour before to his part time job at a little service station about two blocks away, which was a relief to me because if he criticized me about my waist, then surely he would criticize my chest and my bare legs. She ran through the list of supplies for classes on that day: I had one more class than she did that day which meant she would have to wait for me after her last class to take me home. I finished my cup of coffee on that last bit.

I put the plate, the fork, and the mug in the dishwasher before returning back upstairs. I stripped off my camisole by the time I reached the second hallway so I entered the bathroom in just my bottom underwear. It was just a quick shower, washing my hair and scrubbing down my body before I switched off the water and climbed out with a towel upon my head. I strode back across the hallway naked but I left the door slightly ajar as I got dressed. I put on one of my lace bras followed by a black button up top with lacy short sleeves and black trousers. I laced up my black Chuck Taylor sneakers when Misha knocked on the door once again.

“Just about ready?”

I stood up from the desk chair to check through my book bag for everything and slung the strap over my shoulder. I set my black derby hat atop my head and grabbed my sunglasses before the two of us headed down the hall towards the spiral staircase. We headed out to the driveway; Misha locked the front door before we climbed into the cab. I slid my book bag down between my legs onto the floor of the truck. She was bringing her big black camera with a flash bulb to school that day, perhaps to show it off.

We lived right across town from the school, which was a campus of a half dozen black and white buildings strewn upon a level grass area. As we came closer, I noticed the two lane driveway which wound from the main road split the campus in half so there were two parking lots, one to our left and another to our right.

I had world history first followed by a two hour drawing class with Misha and then one hour for lunchtime at one o'clock, and geography at two, wherein I would meet her outside in the left parking lot before the front office for the ride home. Despite the fact my history teacher Mr. Thomas kept wanting to call me by my middle name of Emilia, I had a good feeling about the class and that I was going to do well that quarter. I pictured myself getting lost in the history textbook back at the house whenever Uncle Martin was home.

On the walk towards Mrs. Loch's drawing class clear across on the right side of the campus, Misha rushed up to me from behind with a big grin over her face.

“First day of school and I already have a photography job!” she declared as we prepared to cross the driveway.

“Really?”

“Yeah! I met this girl in my class—her name is Akari… something, I'll have to ask her later on when I see her. She's from Japan. She, her kid sister, and their parents moved here to the United States from Sendai about four years ago after the big earthquake. It destroyed their house and they had nowhere to go so they wound up coming here. She told me she and her sister are both outsiders, him in particular. She's a figure skater: she's been skating since she was like three years old.”

“What's her name?”

“Sakura, I think is what she said. Her name means 'cherry blossom' because even though she was born on Christmas Day, her parents just knew she was going to have a good life if she let herself blossom. Her best friend, who also came here after the earthquake, is named Sara. Sara Eno. They're both figure skaters, which is—I'm guessing—a rare breed in Japan.”

I raised an eyebrow at that.

“Ooh! Which one's better?”

“Sakura, although Sara always puts up a good fight. Both girls are pretty brutal on themselves—like their routines get crazy at times—but I guess they're a lot of fun to watch.”

“And how does this tie into photography? Like, did she ask you to photograph them?”

“Yes! Well, just Sakura, anyways, after school today. Sara's down in Orange County, in California right now, but she'll be up here—next Friday, is what I think she said. Her accent is a little bit thick but her English is impeccable, like better than most Americans. I even told her that!”

We strode down the sidewalk towards the two story building nestled against the off-white chain link fence. Misha held the glass door for me and the two of us entered the clean smelling front lobby with two hallways, one before us and the other to our left.

“Which way is it?” I wondered aloud. She took out her schedule from her jeans pocket to check the room number.

“This way, I think.” She pointed to the hall on our left and we ambled across the carpet to the fourth room on our left, the one with the open doorway to a wide, brightly lit empty classroom with eight matte black tables surrounded by metal stools. A gray metal desk with a black computer was tucked in the far corner surrounded by dark green cabinets; what resembled a weaving loom with a big metal wheel on the side facing us pressed against the back wall in front of the desk, followed by a dark green door and a large rickety wooden table. Two white boards, the bottoms of which lined with gray metal trays eith dry erase markers, hung on the wall to our right. The whole room smelled of wood, like colored pencils combined with new construction paper.

We sat across from each other at the table next to the computer: she had her back turned to the desk and the cabinets, and I faced away from the door. I set my hat down on the table top right as someone entered the room.

“Is this first level drawing class?” a gravelly woman's voice asked us.

“Yes!” replied Misha. “Well, what we believe to be, anyways. We came in here and Mrs. Loch was nowhere to be seen.”

“We'll see, won't we?” The clanking sound of high heels echoed over the floor as the woman strode towards us: I turned my head to get a better look at her. She was short, shorter than both Misha and me, and with shoulder length dirty blonde hair, brilliant green eyes, tiny dark red lips, and an oval face and narrow neck, both of which were covered in fine lines. She had a slender body but a prominent chest, like if I lost weight everywhere else in my body except for my chest. She wore a mocha colored velvet overcoat with a tie belt, a short black skirt underneath, and black high heel shoes speckled with bits and pieces of glitter, and carried a black leather purse over her shoulder.

“Is anyone sitting next to you here?” she pointed at the stool next to me.

“Oh, no, go right ahead.”

She set her purse down on the surface of the table before climbing onto the metal stool. She smelled sweet, like rose petals coated in sugar; I noticed her fingernails were long, much like Misha's nails, but fiery red as opposed to earthy tones.

“I'm Loni,” she started, “but for the longest time, I used to be called Thumbelina.”

Thumbelina! She was the woman Uncle Martin told us about to look for here. Neither Misha nor I made note of it, though.

“I'm Meredith,” I promptly answered, “this is my older sister Michelle.”

“Sisters! And in art class together, how fun! I have a younger brother, but I have yet to get back in touch with him, though—”

Two more students entered the classroom and took their seats at the tables behind us.

“Why's that?” asked Misha.

“I used to be a stripper down in Salem. I worked at like a Moulin Rouge type place: full of corsets and lace and silk and garters and even top hats, all a manner of beautiful things which is mainly why I worked there because I love that stuff. But it was a strip joint. I'd sell my body for money, often for lots of money. We're talking thousands of dollars a night. We're talking making bank just to dance and take all of our clothes off. I was called Thumbelina because I'm so short and I also used to wear these big emerald rose shaped rings on my thumbs. I remember every Friday night, we'd all dress in tiny skirts and top hats like we were the Radio City Rockettes. But it was painful for me. I would often go home with achy feet and ankles because of the high heels I used to wear—not these, these are my safe heels. The pain finally got so bad, like I finally couldn't take the pains of it anymore, that I actually got into things like oxycodone to ease the pain. All I remember from that time period was a dark shadow and the song 'Natural Woman' playing on repeat. I was in such a state that it took me nearly two weeks to realize I hadn't shown up to work in that time. At that point, my boss replaced me with someone else and I lived alone for about a month until I finally went into the Salvation Army to clean up my act. I enrolled here a few months back and here I am. I've been sober for nearly a year at this point.” I did a small clap on that last point. She grinned at that.

“The only problem is my brother won't speak to me. I've tried getting my new boyfriend to contacting him but it hasn't happened yet.”

“He's got to, though,” pointed out Misha; I pictured Uncle Martin calling Thumbelina's brother every twenty minutes back at the house.

“Oh, for sure. New boyfriend's an attorney, so he better heed attention.”

Right at that moment, an older woman with long black and silver flyaway hair and a violet button down shirt strode into the room. She smiled at us as she set down her purse on the computer desk.

“How are you ladies?” she asked us in a light German accent.

“Doin' just alright,” answered Thumbelina with a grin. A few more students entered the classroom and the class period started right then. Mrs. Loch took attendance first before we went around the three tables and introduced ourselves, including why we were in drawing class, which seemed a little odd to me.

Misha gave her account of wanting to be an artist since she could pick up a pencil and also honoring our dad. I followed up with saying I just wanted to have another outlet other than being a writer. Afterwards, a girl with straight black hair sidled up next to Misha to catch her attention.

“Oh, hi!” She turned to me. “Meredith, this is that girl from Japan I was telling you about earlier, Akari—what'd you say your last name was? I'm sorry, I forgot.”

“Ryuzaki,” she promptly replied as she extended a hand to me, “oh, no, it's okay. Er—it happens.”

“Akari Ryuzaki. This is my kid sister Meredith. She never said, but my guess is she's interested in your sister.”

“Really?” Akari raised an eyebrow at me. I shyly shrugged in response: I never said anything to Misha but she did indeed pique my interest.

“Well—when Michelle photographs him later on today—you should come with. Sakura loves meeting people, especially since she is on her way to Pyeongchang in three years.”

“Wait,” interjected Thumbelina, “Pyeongchang? Where's that?”

“South Korea. My baby sister is going to the Olympics! She will be representing our country, Japan.”

“That's amazing!”

I was stunned and a bit bedazzled. I was about to meet a soon to be Olympian. At that moment, my mind went blank. I had no idea what I would say to her when I saw her. I tried to imagine her behavior and her personality but it was all a random guess. I started to feel a little afraid on top of that and the thoughts returned to mind. What would she be like? Was she going to be friendly or completely arrogant?

I kept thinking about Sakura for the rest of that first day of school, all throughout lunch time and even more during geography class. I started to feel the light sensations of butterflies in the pit of my stomach by the time I strode outside to Misha's truck. It all seemed to happen in slow motion, as I climbed inside the cab of the truck and stuck my book bag on the floor between my legs, and then the truck started up and backed out of the parking space.

“Akari told me Sakura's practicing at the rink at the other side of town,” explained Misha as she turned onto the street.

“The one that's been closed for who knows how long?”

“Precisely!”

We made all the lights green all the way up the road to the cylindrical building tucked back in between the tall black pine trees and scraggly shrubs. The bottom part of the building was made of near black wooden planks, whereas the top part consisted of off-white stucco and was topped by a solid black shingled roof. A wooden staircase led up to the off-white front door on the side facing the street; in front of the stairs was a square black parking lot with a small royal blue sedan parked beneath the front door. Misha parked next to the sedan and switched off the engine. She picked up her camera from the middle seat; I climbed and took off my sunglasses despite the sun peeking through the thin layer of gray clouds over our heads. I stood next to the cab of the truck right as I heard the door swing open.

Akari poked her head out the door and gestured for us to come inside. Misha and I shut the doors in unison and made our way to the bottom of the staircase. I noticed a big black jagged rock resting at the base of the stairs and gently nudged it out of the way in the case someone else showed up. We climbed the stairs to the front door to meet up with Akari.

She shut the door behind us as we entered a vast room with a wooden floor that stretched before us and to our right; plain white walls, a low black ceiling decorated in small white lights, and a slender white rail in the middle of the room. She crouched against the side of the rail to put on her skates; she stood upright once Misha and I entered the room.

She was a little bit taller than me, maybe an inch or two, and slender, even svelte, with a prominent, deep chest, a flat stomach, and shapely legs with thick, strong looking thighs and lovely hips. She had feathery black hair, a thick piece of which hung down over her forehead in a cowlick, and a pale smooth round face with a small button nose and sparkling dark brown eyes. She flashed us a big dimpled smile as we strode up towards her. She wore a black mock turtleneck sweatshirt and matching trousers and gloves, all of which fitted to every curve and contour of her body.

“Which of you—is—er, the one with the camera?” she asked us in a gentle voice; right then she noticed the camera in Misha's hands and a pink blush crossed her face. “Oh, I take that back!”

The three of us chuckled as Akari set her arm around her shoulders.

“Sakura, this is Michelle—and her little sister Meredith. Michelle—Meredith—this is whom I have been calling as the pride of Japan, Sakura Ryuzaki.”

When she looked at me, the expression on her face turned thoughtful, as if trying to figure me out, but the dimples remained in place next to the corners of her smile.

“Meredith is your name?”

“Yes.” I stared at her right into his brown eyes, both of which seemed to pull me in closer to her. She was delicate and ethereal, as pale and ghostly as a geisha, and she had this look upon her face as if she was in fact interested in me.

“So, shall we get started?” asked Misha aloud. Sakura bowed her head a bit but kept a sly little grin on her face.

“Of course,” she replied in a soft voice, never taking her eyes off of me. She guided us along the railing towards a wooden staircase which led down to a rectangular ice rink lined by a low white railing. The blue white ice had already been mostly smoothed out, except for a handful of swirly white scratches here and there, which made me raise an eyebrow because I swore no one else used this place before. Sakura led us to an area with two black benches opposite from the wall lining the ice rink.

She peered over her shoulder at the three of us reaching the bottom of the stairs behind her, and then she promptly took a seat on the bench closest to us. We lingered around her as she crossed one leg over the other to remove the guard from the metallic blade on the bottom of her white skate.

Misha and Akari stepped around me to the other bench. I watched Misha set down her camera and Akari turn her back to us, and then Sakura reached up and took my hat off of my head. She set the hat onto her head before she reached down to remove the guard on her other skate. She placed the guards on the bench next to her and stared up at me with my black derby hat atop her head. I showed her a smile: I was a little bit confused, but the hat looked good on her.

“Okay, Sakura, I'm ready—” called out Misha.

She stood to her feet and lightly placed my hat back onto my head before she headed towards the slightly open gate in the wall. I raised an eyebrow as the grinding sound of the blades on her skates emerged from the surface of the ice.

“She has been learning to do a quadruple axel,” said Akari eagerly as she sped away from us towards the other side of the rink, “or 'the Fire Bomb' as the other skaters have been calling it.”

I glanced over at her on the other side of the rink as she tried to pick up speed. She stared at me right in the eye as she raced back towards us: the blades on her skates ground away on the surface of the ice. She resembled to a ghost, flying along the ice towards the lining wall with nothing more than the grinding of the blades on the ice. Just before she reached the wall, she leaped in the air. I felt every muscle in my body clench as she made one, two, three, four turns in midair and landed with a bit of a stumble. She nearly toppled head first into the rail, but she saved it and yanked herself upright.

“Did you get that, Misha?” I called out to my right.

“I did! Right as she made the third turn, too, so it's blurry as hell. But I caught it as well as her gaining speed.”

“She shattered her ankle,” explained Akari, “it was a—er—rather ghastly injury, too. Her right foot faced the other way when the paramedics came for her.”

“Oh, my God!” I exclaimed, feeling my stomach turn at the thought of that.

“Yeah—” Sakura agreed from the other side of the rink. I could see her chest heaving as if she had been running a mile.

Akari asked her something in Japanese and she shook her head as she set her hands on her hips.

“What'd you ask her?” I turned my head to face her.

“If she needs her inhaler. She has—asthma.”

I gaped at her.

“She's a figure skater with asthma?” Misha asked the question for me.

“I have had it my entire life,” answered Sakura in a broken voice as she came back to us; I knew she had no intention of stopping any time soon, either. “I skate no matter what, though, by the direction of my parents and my sister.”

It was like looking in a mirror: her asthma and her ghastly injury felt akin to my losing my dad and watching my mom leave for Europe. She had something that she had loved her whole life and even though something held her back, she went ahead with it. Those who loved her encouraged her to keep going. I wanted to get to know her better, off the ice and somewhere where the four of us could converse with one another.


	5. Dinner with the Ryuzakis

We let Sakura shower off in the locker room behind the benches for a few minutes before we went somewhere for something to eat. While the water from one of the showers splattered against the floor, I examined the rest of this level of the skating rink. I noticed a big red button on one of the support beams holding up the next level.

“What's that button for?” I asked Akari, who had taken a seat on the bench closest to me. She turned her head to see the big red button for herself.

“I am not sure. Perhaps the roof? Every rink I had ever been in had a roof that opened.”

Misha stepped towards the support beam and craned her neck to see for herself.

“Yeah, it says 'open roof'. And—” She peered to her left and her face lit up.

“There she is!”

I turned to see Sakura re-entering the bench area with her black hair wet and shoved back from her forehead, with a big deep pink overnight bag slung over her shoulder. She had changed into a black V-neck blouse, and matching jeans, and black Chuck Taylor sneakers, just like me. The skin on her face had washed out to a near pure white; there was a light pinkish blush underneath her eyes. She tilted her head back, showing us her narrow, swan-like neck all the while, as she outstretched her arms from her body and pushed her chest forward as if she was going to fall onto the floor face first.

I noticed she looked at me and thus she showed me another sly little dimpled smile. She tilted her head back forward to stare at me straight on. She reached out as if about to rest a hand on the side of my neck, but instead lightly touched a strand of hair that had moved from the back of my head and onto my shoulder. She ever so gently pushed the hair back towards the back of my neck.

I peered over at Akari and Misha, just in time to catch the sight of them glancing at each other.

“What?” I wondered aloud.

“Nothing,” squeaked Misha. Akari brought a hand to her mouth and giggled. I returned to Sakura just as her face turned as red as a tomato, and she, too, brought a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle. Her eyes drifted off to the same direction as our sisters.

“What?” I repeated in a lower voice.

“We will tell you later,” she told me in a near whisper. For a split second, I thought she winked at me before she turned around and slid on her soft pink and white windbreaker. The four of us ascended the stairs back up to the level with the wooden floor and headed back outside, just in time to see the torrential rain pouring down. We huddled together in the doorway.

“Oh, I forgot,” Sakura rose her voice a bit over the roar of the rain; she tugged the hood over her head, “I call my routine 'the Rain Storm' because every time I do it, it rains and it rains a lot.”

“That's insane!” exclaimed Misha.

“It really is!” declared Akari. “Neither of us have a clue what—er, brings it on, either!”

“So, would the two of you like something to eat?” I suggested. “We can get lunch together.”

“There's a coffee shop down the street here,” Misha gestured to our right, “but I don't really want to walk in the rain, though, especially when I still have my camera and my film in hand.”

“We could just drive,” I pointed out, “it's only a couple hundred feet but it'd help all of us.”

Misha tucked her camera in the side of her coat as the four of us descended the stairs to the wet blacktop. She and I climbed into the truck; Akari and Sakura ducked into their little sedan and followed us.

The four of us scurried up the ramp heading up to the front door; Sakura held the door for us while showing us her little dimpled smile. We claimed the table furthest away from the door in any case anyone else walked inside and brought the draft in with them. She sat down next to me in the spindly wire chair facing out the window. She stripped off her jacket and slung it over the back of the chair, and then ran his fingers through the side of her wet black hair before flashing a glimpse at me.

Misha bought herself and me cups of coffee, and Akari and Sakura cups of black tea; she also bought me a chocolate muffin and Sakura a cranberry scone.

We told them about our parents, how they met and also our father died of an overdose and no one ever saw it coming, and how our mother was overseas taking care of business and simultaneously caring for us while we attended school. We told them of our dreams of becoming artists, she wanted to be a photographer and I wanted to be an author like my dad. Sakura's face lit up when I mentioned my journal of poetry. They both loved the piece of advice my dad gave me then and they also grimaced at our description of Uncle Martin and his belief against the Japanese.

“Yeah, we can't stand it, either,” Misha concurred, taking a sip of coffee.

“Especially given how sweet you two have been towards us,” I added; Sakura smirked at that.

“Why do you live with him?” asked Akari as she knit her eyebrows together.

“He's our only relative in Oregon,” I glumly replied as I broke off a piece of muffin, “if our grandparents were here, we'd go live with them in a heartbeat. Mom would've let us go to them, too...”

My voice trailed off as I glanced over at Sakura, who sipped on her tea. Her scone had disappeared.

“Goodness, you were hungry!” I declared.

“I have to eat,” she answered with a small shrug.

“Oh, I see. Right, right, figure skating takes a lot out of you so as a result you eat enough to devastate a whole buffet.”

They both burst out laughing at that; their laughter sounded like tinkling champagne glasses. Sakura coughed a little bit and place a hand on her chest. Akari placed a hand on her upper back for a gentle massage.

“You both should—er, come home to dinner with us,” suggested Akari.

“Our parents will love you,” added Sakura, but I wondered how much truth was to that given we were four girls in the same household as two Japanese people. I had no idea if they would be comfortable with either me or Misha.

“Oh? Where do you live?” asked Misha herself.

“We live down in Salem, in a neighborhood called Orchard Heights,” replied Akari.

“Orchard Heights! We used to live there!”

“Really?”

“Mom gave both of us keys to our house in any case we need to get inside for something,” I recalled, “right across the river from our old middle school.”

Sakura was silent while Akari's face lit up.

“Does your house have a big oak tree in the front yard?” the latter asked us in a low voice. “I feel like I have seen one of you on the street.”

“No,” I replied, shaking my head. “We live three doors down from the oak tree, though. A little blue and white two story house with a brick chimney and a row of orange and yellow tiger lilies before the porch. On the corner. Why, you guys live on our street?”

They glanced at each other and then back at us.

“We live across the street from you,” Sakura's face lit up as she brought a hand to her mouth. “Ours is a little—er—cabin looking house with a big porch. There are lots of trees surrounding the house so it is quite cool in the summer time.”

My heart pounded in my chest. I could not believe they were living our neighborhood this whole time and yet we had no clue about them!

“Okay, so what day and what time should we come for dinner?” I asked them.

“She has practice, er, tomorrow and Thursday,” Akari gestured at Sakura, who drank down her tea in three light swallows, “and the three of us have school. I believe our parents both have a day off on Friday, though.”

“I have only photography then,” Misha recalled.

“I have geography about mid afternoon but it's only an hour long class,” I added, “when we get out, we'll hustle home and get ready.”

“It is a date!” proclaimed Sakura with a big grin and all four of us laughed out loud at that.

***************************************

The moment we strode through the front door, Uncle Martin demanded why Misha and I had not returned home sooner when we promised him. She frowned and I did not want to deal with him. I only wanted to have dinner with the Ryuzakis that night instead of having another pathetic partially frozen dinner.

“We met some friends,” Misha began as I tried to sneak up the stairwell.

“Really? Is this so, Meredith?” I stopped on the bottom step. I closed my eyes before turning around to face him and his arms folded over his chest.

“Yes. Yes, first day of school and we already made a couple of friends. Misha and I have always been able to do that since we began school.”

“Am I going to meet your new friends?” continued Uncle Martin in a curt tone of voice. I winced at the thought of him meeting Akari and Sakura. It made my stomach turn at my picturing him seeing their smooth complexions, black hair, and Asian eyes.

“I am taking care of you two. I may as well show an interest in my nieces' lives.”

He dropped his stare to my waist; I wanted to cover up right there. I needed to think of something lest he begin prying answers from me or Misha.

“Maybe. Depends on their mood.” Not quite a lie but not exactly the truth, either. He squinted his eyes at me as if trying to figure me out. It was so silent in that room, I swore a pin dropping could send shockwaves through each of us. He gave a short shrug; I felt the muscles in my belly relax. I wheeled around and bustled up the stairs to my room on the second floor. I kept the door partially open as I set down my book bag. I delved through my dresser for something to wear on Friday night.

******************************************

Misha and I met up with Akari and Sakura at the same downstairs area in the rink the next day in order to formulate an excuse to give Uncle Martin for Friday night. Neither of us wanted to face him with the truth about the four of us; Sakura huddled close to me at the mention of him.

“We could just say we're studying at a friend's house,” suggested Misha, “and they live down in Salem.”

“Yeah, but how are we going to justify dressing up nicely, though?” I pointed out.

“You are having a dinner party there!” exclaimed Akari.

“But what about other times we go to your house, though?” wondered Misha aloud. “What would we do then?”

“Your nails,” Sakura pointed at Misha's hand and her black clawlike fingernails. “You should paint them with glitter.”

“With what?” She raised an eyebrow at that.

“Glitter!”

“But I don't have glitter paint, though.”

“No, but Thumbelina does,” I recalled.

“Thumbelina?” Akari knitted her eyebrows together.

“Thumbelina. We'll tell you later. When we see her in drawing class on Thursday, we should ask her.”

“Okay,” said Misha reluctantly, “but why should I paint my nails, though?”

Sakura never answered but we trusted her on it.

Afterwards, Misha and I agreed that that was her way of getting us to prove we were serious. That Thursday in drawing class, we tiptoed around telling Thumbelina about the dinner party with the Ryuzakis as she was seeing Uncle Martin. Instead we just kept up with the lie that we were going to study at a friend's house on Friday night and they were inviting us for a nice dinner. Misha asked her if she had glittery nail polish she could borrow to glitz up her nails and she replied yes, much to our relief. She took out a small bottle of bright red glittery polish from her purse and reached across the table to hand it to her.

Luckily, class was let out early that day so Misha took the bottle to the bathroom with her. I kept her hands steady as she brushed the polish onto her solid black nails; by the time she finished, the whole bathroom reeked of polish but she was in fact ready for that next night.

I was eager to get out of geography class that afternoon. I wondered about Sakura and Akari's parents and if they would be accepting of Misha and me. I had hopes that they would because the two of them both accepted and befriended us, but it was a complete unknown concerning their parents.

Misha and I both showered beforehand, and also brushed our hair and put on a couple of sprays of perfume. I dressed in my favorite black dress, with a low neckline, three buttons up front, short sleeves, a slender black ribbon around the waist, and a lace skirt; Misha put on a black dress with a white collar and short sleeves with white lace hems and five buttons up front. We both wore our little black slippers and wrapped ourselves up in our coats.

Also much to our luck, Uncle Martin wasn't home so we could just go, but I knew he would question us if we stayed out past a certain time. Misha and I both crossed our fingers that the Ryuzakis would not keep later than eleven.

We climbed into the truck with our book bags, in order to better pretend going to a friend's house to study. We got onto the freeway heading down to Salem by a quarter after four in the afternoon: the sun was beginning to sink behind the sheet of dark gray clouds forming around the mountain tops to the west and the sky started to shift colors from clear blue to a deep violet and bright yellow.

I tried to imagine the inside of their house as we entered Salem, and Mount Jefferson and Three Fingered Jack came into better view from the jagged, shadowy Cascade Mountains. We turned off for the road heading towards the river and at that point, I began to feel even more nervous. The scenarios started going through my head, and the one in particular was what if Mr. and Mrs. Ryuzaki was like Uncle Martin or my mom's parents? I closed my eyes once we crossed the river and entered Orchard Heights. I opened them once our old house entered view.

“Nostalgia just hit me like a brick wall,” noted Misha as we slowed down at the sight of the tiger lilies along the front walkway.

“Me, too—and there's their house!” I pointed to the property directly across from the corner, the one with all of the big oak trees in the front yard. Misha glanced ahead to see if anyone was coming our way before she spun the steering wheel around and we turned around in the middle of the street. She parked the truck next to the curb and switched off the engine.

We climbed out into the chilly late afternoon; I stared on at the house, our old house, the house we should be staying in, across the corner for a minute until Misha strode up next to me. She set a hand on my shoulder and briefly followed my gaze.

“Come on, sister—let's go have some dinner with a nice family.”

We ambled up the shaded walkway; I shivered from all the trees surrounding us and snuggled further down inside my coat. The front porch had a white wooden railing and a muted blue awning overhead; low lush bushes nestled down at the base of the railing next to three black stone steps. We huddled together as Misha rang the doorbell next to the brick red front door. There was brief silence and right then, I had a weird feeling like someone was watching us. I glanced over at the front window behind Akari and Sakura peeking outside at us: the latter flashed me a grin when he recognized me.

She said something to someone inside and a low click emerged from behind the door. Akari opened the door; she wore a red silk dress, and had combed her wet black hair back from her face, and smelled faintly of roses. Her face lit up at the sight of us.

“Hello, Meredith and Michelle! Come inside!” she gestured into the house and we stepped into the cozy warm foyer. Sakura hurried up to us from the room to our left wearing a black silk dress that was a little bit too big for her and a green jade necklace. She flung her arms around me and then Misha; the side of her neck also smelled of roses, but also of freshly cooked noodles; her chest felt so warm.

“Oh, they are here!”

I peered to my right at an older man with thinning black hair and wire framed glasses descending the carpeted stairwell. He gave us a polite bow by the time he reached the bottom of the stairs; Misha and I did the same for him.

“I am Yagi Ryuzaki,” he began in a scratchy voice and a warm smile, “Akari and Sakura's father. I appreciate you both coming to join us. May I ask that you ladies remove your shoes before coming inside completely.” Misha and I nodded and slipped off our slippers so we walked about the soft shag carpet in our stockings. Mrs. Yami Ryuzaki came out from the warm kitchen, with a black apron over her red silk dress, on the right side of the hallway to greet us with a polite bow and tell us dinner would be ready in about two minutes. At one point, she leaned over to whisper something to Sakura's ear; they both stared right at me while doing so. Sakura showed me a shy smile once Mrs. Ryuzaki gestured Mr. Ryuzaki to come forth and join her in the kitchen.

“What'd she say to you?” I asked her in a low voice; little clanking noises emerged from the other room as her parents set the table. Akari, meanwhile, hung Misha's coat on the hook next to the door.

“She said—” she started, her face turning bright pink, “—she said you are astonishingly beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful friend I made and have brought home. But... remember, we are friends.”

"Right." I gently patted the side of her face right as Mrs. Ryuzaki returned to the hallway to tell us dinner was ready. The five of us filed into the kitchen and then the warmly lit dining room which had a low heavy dark oak table with black stoneware bearing a big platter of sashimi, tempura carrots and green beans, soba noodles, and what Mr. Ryuzaki called _tonkatsu,_ or breaded pork accompanied with cabbage and miso soup. Six bamboo mats on the floor circled the table and Sakura and Mr. Ryuzaki both asked us to get down on our knees. I foresaw my feet falling asleep but it was out of respect for them; I knelt in between the two of them, while Mrs. Ryuzaki and Misha knelt across from us, and Akari took the other end of the table.

I had always had trouble eating with chopsticks but luckily, Mr. Ryuzaki was kind enough to show me. Once I was able to pick up my noodles without wanting a spoon, all four of them clapped.

They asked Misha and me about ourselves and so we told them about our dreams and our aspirations. I talked about our dad's influence on us and how we thought of giving up after his passing.

“After the earthquake,” Sakura started once I finished, “the one four years ago that brought us here—everyone all received balls of rice as part of survival welfare. They—” He gestured at his parents “—let Akari and me have theirs. Ever since then, I always thank my parents for everything they do for both me and my sister.”

It was as if my heart just melted inside my chest. At the same time, I couldn't agree with her more. I thanked both of my parents right then, inside my mind.

We continued to eat dinner until Sakura offered to help clean up which allowed Mrs. Ryuzaki to show Misha and me the house. They had a big black comfortable looking couch and a matching reclining chair circled around the fireplace in their living room; behind the couch was a huge black wooden bookshelf chock full of books, including a big tattered atlas of the world laying on its side by its lonesome on the bottom shelf.

“My husband and I have had that atlas since well before Akari was born,” she explained, “it still shows the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia!”

A thick black tome sat perched at the far end of the third shelf down from my line of sight: it caught my eye because it had the words “ **TANTRIC PRACTICES** ” written in big bold silvery letters on the spine. It also looked as though it had been moved in the past as it stuck out a bit further from the rest of the books; perhaps someone had gone through it prior to then. I had only known about tantra through Sting and somewhat through reading about ancient India in high school with touching on the topic of the Kama Sutra, but that was all I knew about it; it was otherwise an unknown to me. I never said anything to Mrs. Ryuzaki but I started thinking about it by the time we all congregated in the living room for tea and ice cream.

At one point, when no one paid attention, I peered back at that book to have a better look at it then turned back around before someone asked me what I was looking at. From what I could tell, the book looked as though it was about to fall right off the shelf at any given second. And it did, making a loud _THWACK!_ onto the carpet no less.

“I will get it! I will get it!” exclaimed Sakura as she scrambled to her feet and rushed towards the bookshelf. I watched her hurry to the book on the floor, which I noticed had opened upon impact; she picked it up and hastily put it back on the shelf. I couldn't exactly tell but I saw her hands trembling. She returned to the little alcove with a flushed face.

“Is everything alright?” asked Misha with her eyebrows knitted together.

“Er—yes, it is just—you know—”

“What?”

For a split second, she glanced over at me.

“Nothing. It does not matter.”

I really began thinking about that book. But, once again, I never said a word about it to anyone.

By the time Misha and I felt settled into the living room and the Ryuzakis' hospitality, it was nearly eleven and the two of us yelped in unison when we realized the time. We scrambled back to the front door to put our slippers and our coats back on, and for them to tell us good bye. Mr. Ryuzaki showed me a kind smile as he opened my coat for me.

“So shall we do this again?” I asked him.

“You and Michelle are welcome back at any time you would like,” he replied in a soft voice. "You are friends after all." I embraced both of them, followed by Akari and Sakura, the latter of whom had a much warmer chest and stomach than before. They watched us out of the house and into the truck. By the time I shut the passenger side door, I started to miss them.

“Wouldn't it be nice if we could just walk across the street and be done with it?” Misha wondered aloud as she took out the key from her coat pocket and started up the truck. I sighed through my nose.

“It'd be quite nice,” I softly replied, giving one last wave to the Ryuzakis before we motored away.


	6. Coffee with Eno

I thought about that book and Sakura's reaction to it falling on the floor all weekend long. It made me think of a young girl curiously searching into that sort of thing and freaking out when she believes someone wonders about it in front of her. I thought of asking Misha to drive me back down to Salem to go talk to her but there was no way either of us could leave at that time: Thumbelina had come over on Saturday afternoon and we needn't be seen there at the house. I hoped she and Uncle Martin would keep to themselves as Misha and I hid out in our rooms. I wrote poetry and thought of my first short story project for creative writing. I took out my journal and played around with couplets while sitting there at the desk. At one point, Misha came into my room out of boredom and lay on my bed to stare up at the ceiling in silence.

“I wonder if Sakura likes you,” she whispered after several minutes. “She behaves awkwardly enough around you. Smirks, smiles, blushes—she even wore your hat!”

“She apparently reads about tantric practice, too,” I blurted out as I came to the end of the page inside my journal.

“Seriously?”

I turned my head at her gaping at me.

“Yeah. You know that book that fell on the floor last night while we were in the living room? It was about tantric practices.”

“How do you know that?”

“It actually said on the side 'tantric practices' in big bold letters. On top of that, it was pretty much sticking out like a sore thumb on the bookshelf. I mean, did you see how flustered she got when she went over to pick it up? It was like a young kid who's curious about that sort of thing and then gets all embarrassed when something happens that arouses suspicion. I don't know the whole story but it just makes me wonder about him—”

“Hm, I wonder about Sara, too.”

“Sara—oh, Sara! The other figure skater! When did Akari say she was coming back up here again, Friday?”

“I think so? It sounded like Friday. All I know is some time this upcoming week. I wonder what she's like if she's as gay as we are—did you get Sakura's number at all?”

“I didn't, no. But the next time we see her, I'll ask her, though. God, I hope Thumbelina leaves soon—I'm getting hungry.”

“You're always hungry.” She reached out to playfully poke my belly. I jerked to the side and set a hand on the spot. She propped up her head with her other hand and smirked at me.

“If she's been reading about tantric practice, then surely she's got a couple of tricks up his sleeve, if you know what I mean. She can find inspiration. She can treat you well once she lets her walls all fall down and the awkwardness fall by the wayside. A girl who does something called 'the Fire Bomb' should be able to pull a rabbit from a hat. Again, if you know what I mean.”

I scoffed at that.

“Michelle!”

“What? You're a buxom brunette. A bombshell. A cute girl with a soft round tummy and lovely curves. Soft and chubby, pleasingly plump… a beautiful girl. Your mother's French and your dad was Italian and Mexican. You're well read. You're a poet and an aspiring novelist. You're kind to everyone, too. You've seen the shadows of life. Surely she'd want to get close to that belly and give it some sexy love.”

“ _Michelle!_ ”

“And she's one of those ladies who's cute and hot at the same time. I mean, think about it, Meredith. She's foreign and exotic. Kind of looks like us but with pale complexion instead of this olive undertone we've got. Shares pain with us: she survived a massive earthquake, we survived our father's addiction. Cute little baby face, drop dead sexy athletic body. Loves her parents and her sister. You're too young to remember Nana's sentiment 'there's nothing sexier than a man who loves his mother.' Surely, it goes both ways: there's nothing sexier than a woman who loves her father.”

“When did you hear that?”

“I was like five or six; you were just a toddler. It was one of the first times we got to visit Nana and Poppop in California. I remember because of the word 'sexier'. If I remember correctly, she was actually talking about Dad when she said it but my point is Sakura's hiding something, more than likely her interest in you. And—” She fluttered her eyelashes.

“—she's going to want to pounce at some point. Meredith, she wants to 'dance' with you.”

I blinked at her several times before closing the journal to fully focus on her.

“What do you think I should do?”

“Go out with her. One on one. Methinks the home environment was throwing her a bit, so get alone with her.”

“Methinks?”

“Methinks. That's what I get for studying Shakespeare after you. But it can just be at the rink or somewhere else, but regardless, she wants to be alone with Meredith Rossi. She wants to be with you and get to know you better. She wants to lower her 'wall'—if you will—and she wants you to do the same, at the very least in a platonic manner. But she's pretty hot so it's hard to say…”

“Mrs. Ryuzaki _did_ call me beautiful.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. When she came out of the kitchen to greet us, she pulled Sakura aside and told her I'm probably the most beautiful girl she made friends with. It was in Japanese so I had to ask her about it. But I wonder how much truth there is to that, though—”

“If she has made other 'friends,'" she said, making quotation marks with her fingers, "they're neither here nor there at this point. You're her focus now. She has her eyes on you and in more than just a friendly way. Her parents love you, too. So does Akari. I really doubt it's love at first sight, but remember, she hugged you.”

“She did! She let me lay my head against her chest. Not once, but twice. And she wore my hat for about a minute. Okay, so the next time we see her, I'll ask her if she wants to have a cup of coffee or just take a walk.”

She flashed me a sly smile.

“That's my little sister. Just out of curiosity, what's her hug like?”

“Warm. Welcoming, like she actually wanted to hug me. Comfortable. The second time around, she felt a lot warmer because she was full of dinner and dessert. Kind of—soft, actually. I think that dress may have had something to do with it, but—”

“Her chest was warm, her belly was soft, and her body was holding and protecting you. She was letting you in, or trying to, anyways. After giving Dad hugs all my life, that tells me she was trying to be protective with you. On Monday, go get that girl, Meredith. She wants you. She wants you bad.”

“Just out of curiosity, how do you know all these things?”

“Meredith, I'm your sister, and I, too, like girls. So I'm supposed to talk to you about girls. So figure I'm going to read about these things when no one's paying attention.”

******************************************

The butterflies returned to me as Misha and I drove up to the skating rink after classes that Monday afternoon. She had her camera once more as Akari asked her to photograph Sara this time, who had come back to Oregon five days early.

When we pulled up to the stairwell, I peered out the windshield at the sight of Sakura leaning forward against the rail above us. Another girl leaned against the rail next to her: she had a thick short mop of brownish wavy hair piled all around her head; a few tendrils of which hung down in her big brown eyes and her dense eyebrows. Where Sakura had snowy white complexion, she had bit of a darker tinge to her flesh. I glanced over at Misha and the devilish grin on her face.

She picked up her camera from the middle seat and we climbed out of the cab of the truck into the crisp autumnal air to meet the two girls, both of whom flashed kind smiles at us as we ascended the stairs.

Sara Eno was a few inches shorter than Sakura, like I could hug her and her head could slip in between my breasts, and slightly heavier. Where Sakura had a wiry lanky body, Sara was built more like a swimmer, with her broader shoulders and much more stout legs. She spoke with a light, gentle tone of voice and had a sweet little laugh; she, too, lived down in Salem, but rather on the south end, closer to Rosedale.

Misha had a smile on her face the entire time she introduced himself to us.

“So, am I going to photograph just you this time or both of you?” she asked.

“Well, me, to start with,” replied Sara, “and maybe Sako, too, if she is feeling up to it. But who knows? She is not even dressed for the occasion!” She gestured at Sakura's plain white blouse, black trousers, and black Chuck Taylors; Sakura herself in turn rolled her eyes, and Misha and I both giggled at them. Misha eagerly followed Sara inside the skating rink, which left the two of us outside on the landing of the stairs. Sakura turned her head to me and showed me a shy little grin.

“Shall we take a walk?” I suggested, remembering what Misha advised me two days before. She blinked several times in response, like that caught her by surprise.

“Er, sure—”

She held out her arm for me to descend the stairs and then she followed me down towards the pavement. We strode together past the truck, and towards the street.

“Is it alright if I called you Sako?” I asked her as we started walking in unison down the sidewalk.

“Of course. What may I call you, just Meredith or something else?”

“Just Meredith. I've never gone by Mary or anything like that, not like my sister whom I've always referred to as Misha. My dad always called me his little miss, though.”

“His little miss!” Sako chuckled at that as we reached the corner. The road in front of us stretched onward towards the on-ramp connecting to the freeway which headed up to Portland. I turned my head to the left at a side street lined with oak trees. Sako set a hand on my shoulder to guide me down the street: she had such a gentle grip that it felt as though I walked with a little teddy bear. The scraggly branches hung over our heads bearing golden yellow and brown leaves ready to fall to the ground for the autumn. A part of me wanted to huddle closer to him as the slight shade from the trees was enough to send a shiver up my spine.

“So how do you like Oregon?”

“I like it very much,” she kindly answered. “Everyone here is so friendly and inviting. Everyone is polite. Everything is cheap, too, especially groceries at the market. It is as if everyone is taking their time with everything, you know, there's not really a need to be in a hurry like in Los Angeles or New York—but—”

“But what?”

“I have not exactly—made a lot of friends here, though. I have met plenty of fellow figure skaters as part of my path to the Olympics. Sara is my friend, like—my little sister. She is only three years behind me but that is how I see her. I am also friends with another skater named Joanna, who is from Spain. We share a couple of coaches, including my head coach. But they are all part of my career. There really has not been much of anyone else whom I have found well enough to be a friend with. The earthquake, while putting me on track with my dream, has also isolated me. Sara, too.”

“So you came here to start again.” She stooped down to pick up a big golden fallen leaf, twice the size of my hand, from one of the shrubs along the sidewalk. I remembered what Misha told me before in order to be one on one with her. I needed to bring my wall down for her.

“When my dad died, I was pretty much alone. It was before my high school graduation, too, so figure I was in no mood to speak about it to anyone.”

“How did he die again? I know you said but I just need—er, a refresh of memory.”

“Heroin. An overdose. No one had any idea he was addicted, either, but at the same time, I feel like that's what allowed him to write such beautiful novels. But still, it was total shock to Misha, myself, our mom, our grandparents, and our Uncle Martin, too. I think the other side of being unable to speak about it is—I've never really known anyone who's dealt with that similar kind of trauma before. An event that—changes your whole life forever and makes you rethink everything.”

She stopped right there on the sidewalk to stare at me right in the eye. It felt as though her eyes were about to swallow me whole. I could feel it: she wanted to do something. But all she could do was stare at me right in the eye for a minute. Everything fell silent all around us. I just gazed into those massive dark holes which opened up from her skull. I stared into nothing and yet I stared into everything, everything that made her.

Sako finally closed her eyes and bowed her head.

“Forgive me,” she pleaded in a low voice, “I know staring is rude.”

“No, no, it's okay. If anything, I feel more comfortable around you now because of that.”

She lifted her head and raised an eyebrow.

“Really?”

“Yeah. It was like—I could see you. Really truly see you.”

She had a vacant expression on her face. She never said anything as I gestured for her to come along the sidewalk. I peered back at that golden leaf still inside of her one hand. She handed it to me once she caught up with me. I took it with a little smile.

Sako and I continued on down the side street as it looped back around the rink and through the trees before meeting up with the road about a block down. We walked side by side back up along the side of the street until Misha's truck appeared in view. I noticed she sat on the bottom step of the stairs with Sara; as we came closer, I noticed the brown paper coffee cups in their hands.

“Did you guys get coffee?” I asked Misha once we entered earshot.

“You bet we did,” she grinned at us. “Well, I did, anyways. She wanted tea.” She tilted her head at the sight of the leaf in my hand. “That's a pretty big leaf. Jesus.”

“She found it, not me.” I gestured at Sako, who coyly shrugged when the three of us glanced over at her. Misha's face lit up.

“Aw, were you guys able to click?”

“We were, yes!”

“Sara and I clicked, too. Don't judge us but we were just comparing notes to how Sako is on the ice, and I was able to get some really nice shots of her all the while, too. Before you two walked up, we were discussing a trip to Portland to meet the rest of—what'd you call it again?”

“The Skating Club," answered Sara. "It's—Sako, myself, and several others. It is one of many practice sessions before the season starts.”

Misha flashed me a knowing glance.

“When is it?” I asked Sako.

“It's—the week after Hallowe'en, I think? I will have to check with Coach Clarke.”

“And I with Coach Carrow,” Sara chimed in. “We should let you both go back home and study.”

“We probably should,” I agreed, “besides I have a paper to write for my class. But before we leave, though, I want to get you ladies' numbers.”

“Oh, so you can have two girls blowing up your phone as you try and write an essay?” Misha teased me. I raised an eyebrow at her as I took out my phone from my coat pocket. My hands shook as I typed in their names into my address book; I decided to give them separate ringtones once I returned to the house. Misha and I gave them both a hug before we climbed back into the cab of the truck. We waved out the windshield at them; Sako blew a kiss at me.

Once we returned to the street, Misha spoke up.

“Meredith, could you do me a favor?”

“Of course.”

“And I want you to keep this just between you and me, and there's a part of me that still can't believe I did this, either. But—I lied to Sara about our living circumstances.”

“What do you mean?”

“I told her about our parents but I didn't dare tell her about Uncle Martin. I told her we're living in the apartment complex on the other side of town and I just hope she doesn't feel the need to come over and visit us, either. Sakura, Akari, and their parents are already spooked of him. It's just for Sara's protection, though. I know, it's not fair to them but the damage is done already.”

I sighed through my nose. I had no clue how to answer to that.

“But please keep it between us, though. Sakura needn't know that I lied to her best friend. I'm sure if she ever does find out, it'll be for the best because we adore them both—”

“—and Uncle Martin would freak if he found out what we were doing.”

“Right! So, let's keep this whole thing a secret.”

“Okay.” I stared out the window the rest of the way home; instead of thinking of our secret, I tried to think of what songs I could associate messages from Sako and Sara.


	7. The Skating Club

Misha and I decided to continue the lie to Uncle Martin about where we were going that weekend with the skating club. We both told him that we were sleeping over at a friend's house this time around. Fortunately, he bought into it but not without reluctantly giving us the green light first. I pointed out that they lived down Salem so I made it at the very least sound like the truth. Upon returning to our rooms, Misha suggested we not reserve a room otherwise he could very easily find us.

She had it right when I had two girls blowing up my phone while doing homework for classes. I chose the opening riff from “Mellowship Slinky in B Major” from the Red Hot Chili Peppers for whenever Sako messaged me and the chorus of “Let's Go Crazy” from Prince for Sara. Every day beginning from when we came home, I kept my phone within arm's length on my desk. I had to be careful not to keep the ringtones too loud lest Uncle Martin wonder why I was listening to the same songs over and over again.

Whenever he was at work and I kept my door open, Misha would be subject to listening the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Prince all day, at least until he came home and I closed my door again. Even after I closed my door, she told me she would hear both ringtones through the wall, which made me wonder if Uncle Martin could hear them downstairs. The first few days I expected him to ask me about it but fortunately, he never brought it up. They both spoke to me in between practice and training sessions and neither of them had anything better to do.

Sara sometimes messaged me to ask me about everything at the complex, but luckily she never asked to come over to visit. Sako told me she had to wait another a year before she could attend school here in the United States, but until then she had hardly anything else to do. On Thursday, they both asked me about my mom and every time I simply could not say anything about her. I never received a single message from Mom after she left the house for the airport; Misha told me it must have been because international calls and messages are not cheap.

They joined into a single thread asking me about my birthday and I told them I was born on the twenty seventh of April, and I confessed to both of them that the only thing I knew about Western astrology was my sign, Taurus. Sako replied she was born on Christmas Day, making her a Capricorn; Sara chimed in saying she knew nothing about Taurus and Capricorn except they were compatible because they were both rigid and earthy. I was unsure if I wanted to laugh or reach through the phone and playfully slap her for that.

She continued by saying she was born on the last day of November, which made her a Sagittarius. I eagerly replied with Misha's birthday of the twenty seventh of September, which made her a Libra, which I knew was compatible with Sagittarius. Sara replied with a series of hearts in different colors before confessing to being born nearly sixteen years ago. The inner pit of my stomach sank down a bit; I hoped she told Misha she had her eye on a girl four years younger than her. I asked her if she had her number in her phone and she said yes.

At one point on Wednesday, Sako sent me several photographs of her teddy bear and Beanie Baby collection in her bedroom, including one section right next to her bed specifically dedicated to colorful bears. I could hardly react to it because I was in drawing class when she sent the album to me. But Misha and Thumbelina both noticed the expression on my face since they were right there at the table.

“What is it, Meredith?” demanded Misha, showing me a sly little smirk.

“I'll tell you later,” I hastily replied, stuffing the phone back into my jeans pocket.

“I liked that ringtone, too,” remarked Thumbelina, “groovy, funky, and sexy. Just for a groovy, funky, and sexy girl.”

I blushed at that, hoping she wouldn't ask me the same question as Misha.

For the next few weeks, in between classes, I took a head shot of myself and sent it to her. Once I came to class, she always replied with a sweet compliment or heart eyes. I did the same for Sara on Friday morning and she replied with “ _ohayo, utsukushi_!” followed by “good morning, beautiful!”

They continued to back and forth messages with me, and they did it so much that I began to hear their voices, their accents including their “s” and “z” pronunciations of “th” words and their swapping in the letter “l” with “r”, all their mannerisms through their messages.

It was a few nights before their big Skating Club meeting in Portland, while I was about ready to go to bed, Sako sent me this:

“I have been looking at your face and I was wondering if I could please see your body this time. Just with your clothes on, though.”

I had no idea how to respond to that. I flashed back on Misha telling me she wanted me. I peered down at my clothes at that moment, my black camisole and a pair of plain white panties. I returned to the message on the screen and sighed through my nose.

Reluctantly, I sat upright as I turned on the phone's camera. I switched on the desk lamp before setting the timer for five seconds and then placed the phone against the side of my laptop. I leaned back onto the bed so the camera could capture my body and my thighs. As soon as the picture was taken, I noticed my top had ridden up my body a little bit so she could see that little stripe of skin, that roll of fat which had accumulated and grown around my waist. I wanted to delete the photograph and take another one but she was waiting for me.

I hit “send” and waited. Those nervous butterflies flurried up inside my stomach as I set the phone down on the surface of the desk and lay back down on my bed. I closed my eyes as I tried to calm down my heartbeat. The opening riff of “Mellowship” played out into the quiet room.

I picked up the phone and read her message:

“I hope that, by the time I retire, I am as curvaceous and beautiful as you are.”

I sighed with relief at that. My heart and stomach both calmed down. She sent another message right afterwards.

“I need to sleep. I promise I'll dream of you. Speak more tomorrow?”

“Of course,” I wrote back.

******************************************

That Friday afternoon, nearly a week after Halloween, Misha and I climbed into the truck with our overnight bags and some extra blankets. We had reached the corner when I peered into the driver side rear view mirror at the sight of a small red car pulling into the driveway. Misha gasped at who climbed out of the car: I took a second look to see it was Thumbelina. We left just in time.

She and I had figured we were going to sleep in the bed of the truck once we reached Portland as we had no clue Sako and Sara would let us join them and we both neglected to ask them up to that point. I asked them directions to the rink but I forgot to ask about where they were staying. Apparently they were practicing at the vast Moda Center:

“Oh, we know exactly where that is!” declared Misha upon Sara's information. We had to figure out just how to get inside, though, as we were going to a practice event instead of an actual event.

Little puffy clouds lingered around the Valley all the way up the road to the Portland metropolitan area: I noticed a bank of clouds forming above the Columbia River and even more clouds forming around Mount Hood to the east of us. We turned off at the exit heading to the road winding around the Moda Center; Misha bypassed the parking garage and parked on the street behind a big blue, gray, and white bus with tinted windows.

“Methinks that's their bus?” she wondered aloud.

“Perhaps,” I followed up with that.

We climbed out and headed to the glass front doors, and then inside the brightly lit front lobby. We were about to head to the ground level sections when a couple of ushers in black shirts stopped us in our tracks. Sara then strode up behind them, dressed in all elegant black with guards on her pure white skates, and stray tendrils of her hair hanging down in her eyes; she told them off and then her face lit up at the sight of us.

“There they are!” her voice broke. “I would hug you both but I am already sweating.” But regardless we both gave her a hug as part of greeting.

“Where's Sako at?” I asked her.

“She is inside speaking to our coaches. Come with me—come meet everyone.”

She led us past the stairwells and into a corridor which circled around the floor of the arena: the guarded blades of her skates made little muffled clinking noises with every step on the hard floor. Someone could watch the two of us following this little Japanese girl who made strange sounds with her feet and only wonder what the hell we were doing. Sara led to us all the way around to a low doorway, where she whirled around and eagerly gestured for us to join her.

Misha and I stood in the doorway of what reminded me of the old weight room from junior high school days: the one wall to our right was comprised entirely of floor to ceiling mirrors, whereas the one to our left merely opened up to the dry section before the vast sheet of ice that had been put down well beforehand. The floor was covered with a hard looking blue green carpet; two young skaters, both of whom looked to be about mine and Misha's age, sat on the carpet with their legs spread outward so as to stretch. I recognized Sako by the other side of the room speaking to an older heavier gentleman in a gray sweater. Sara said hi to the other two skaters before leading us toward Sako and the man.

“So let's see,” his voice came into clarity as we came closer, “we've got the quadruple axel, the Fire Bomb—the Amuse Bouche, which is a succession of Fire Bombs—and then, weirdly, there's the Amuse Bouche of Fire Bombs—” The man glanced up at us with a perplexed expression on his face.

“Hello, Sara! And two more beautiful young ladies?”

Sako turned her head and flashed us a big grin.

“Oh, you both made it! Coach, this is Meredith Rossi and her sister Michelle. They are friends of me and Sara. Er—this is my head coach, Frank Clarke.”

“A friend of Sako, Sara, and also Joanna is a friend of me,” Coach Clarke greeted both of us with handshakes. “What do you girls do?”

“I'm a photographer,” said Misha promptly, “I'm also a fine art student.”

“And I'm a poet and a writer,” I chimed in. “I study literature.”

“Wow. Roses are red, violets are blue—I'm not sure where this is going.” I laughed out loud at that and Coach Clarke showed me a devilish grin. “Speaking of Joanna, have either of you gorgeous girls seen her around here?”

“We haven't met her yet,” pointed out Misha, “so we wouldn't know what she looked like.”

“You both will like Jo,” assured Yagi, “trust me.”

“I trust you,” I replied; once again, I swore he winked at me.

Sara gestured for us to continue following her throughout the area to meet the other skaters. The two on the floor stretching in unison were Danielle Park and Nina Chang, both of whom were American. Danielle seemed out of breath by the time she stood onto her feet and Nina looked unwilling to stand up just yet. Sara introduced us to the suave, svelte Jeannie Lee, or Jezza as everyone called her, who hailed from Canada and looked lovely with her red wine colored crushed velvet dress, and also Ling Liang, or Tippytoe as everyone nicknamed her, from China.

“Why 'Tippytoe'?” I asked her.

“I like to play on the ice,” she answered with a shy smile.

We also met the third American and as far as we knew the only not Asian of the group, Izzy Torres: she was a little taller than Misha, and slender, and had flyaway blond hair and showed us pearly white teeth when she smiled. She was putting on a filmy blue dress with lace sleeves as we strode up to her.

“Oh, that's a cute top,” she gestured at Misha's black V neck blouse. She thanked her with a soft chuckle and a blush to her face.

“And you,” she glanced over at me with a twinkle in her eye, “you look absolutely stunning next to sweet little Sara and Sakura here.”

Misha and I glanced at each other to find Sako had silently sidled up to us, which made the both of us yelp out. She yelped out in reaction, followed by Sara, then Sako again, then Izzy burst out laughing; the yelps continued to Tippytoe, then Jezza, then Danielle and Nina in unison, then back to Sako before Coach Clarke blew his whistle to get their attention.

“Alright, girls! Let's get going—”

Sako stepped out from in between us and lightly patted either side of Tippytoe's face. Sara ran her fingers through her hair; Izzy guided us out of the area and into the carpeted corridor with all the benches for the skaters. I spotted a stairwell down by the other side of the rink: it was bit of a walk but I could see it ascending into all the seats surrounding the rink.

“So do we just go up there and hang out?” Misha asked her.

“Oh, yeah, any of those spots up there are good. It's always so nice to have guests come to sessions, especially. And, oh, by the way—” She stopped me in place. “—what's your name?”

“Meredith.”

“Meredith. I was not kidding when I said you look stunning next to Sako. You two look gorgeous together. If I didn't know better, I could've sworn you were a couple.”

Misha playfully slapped my shoulder before we headed towards the stairwell. The two of us began to climb up the stairs as soon as a man's voice crackled onto some speakers overhead.

“Good afternoon, ladies—it's November the sixth, 2015. I'm Hermes Soya, I'll be your announcer for today—the first up is Nina Chang of the United States of America, skating to 'Owner of a Lonely Heart' by Yes.”

We watched Nina speak to Coach Clarke and another coach first before sliding onto the ice. She peered up at us and kindly waved; Misha and I waved back as she pirouetted towards the middle of the ice and turned her back to us. She bowed her head, crossed her legs, and remained statuesque for a minute until the opening riff blared out over our heads. I had only heard this song twice before but it made me think of Dad. He came into mind as Nina performed down below us; I wondered if Dad had a lonely heart, given he kept his addiction to heroin hidden from all of us. I wondered why he felt that way, too.

Nina carried out the Fire Bomb, the four turns in midair, and nearly stumbled onto her knees. Maybe it was her hair. Maybe it was all of their hair, except for Izzy and her blond head. Maybe. But I envisioned Dad down there on the ice as well as next to us.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched a woman with short black hair enter the bench area. I spotted a pair of skates slung over her left shoulder.

“Think that might be Joanna?” I asked Misha in a low voice as Nina tried a second Fire Bomb.

“Looks it. She's got dark hair and an olive complexion like us. Yeah, Sako's coming over to her and saying 'hi'—OH GOD.”

“Huh?” I had begun to pay more attention to Nina.

“They just gave each other the biggest hug.”

“Aw!”

Nina fell onto her hands and knees after trying a third Fire Bomb. She gingerly climbed to her feet and ambled back towards the benches, which prompted Hermes to speak once again.

“Next is Sara Eno of Japan, skating to 'Fat Bottomed Girls' by Queen.”

Misha and I clapped as Sara stepped onto the ice. She waved both arms at us as she made his way to the same spot Nina started. Freddie's voice belted out over our heads and she began her session.

“Funny of her to choose this song: we're fat bottom girls,” Misha snickered.

“Well, I am, anyways,” I pointed out. I thought of the photograph of myself I sent to Sako the other night, the one of me in my underwear. She told me I was curvaceous and beautiful, and that was just from the front side. I imagined what she'd say to the back as Sara performed two Fire Bombs, one after the other. Misha's mouth dropped open.

“What did Coach Clarke call several Fire Bombs in succession?” She glanced over at me with a raised eyebrow.

“Amuse Bouche,” I recalled.

“Amuse Bouche, that's it! Yeah, come on, Sara!” she clapped her hands. She gathered speed near the other side of the rink and looped back. Misha clambered into an upright position. I watched her lean forward with a wide eyed expression on her face. I glanced down at Sara pirouetting on the ice on one foot. I peered over at Sako and Joanna watching him from the benches. Misha clasped her hands to her face as Sara ducked out of the spin and began to pick up speed once more. She watched in silence as she sprinted towards us and caught air.

One. Two. Three. Four. Landed on both feet right at the line “GET ON YOUR BIKES AND RIDE!”

Misha let out a loud squeal. Sara peered up at her with a baffled expression. I glanced over at Misha bowing her head to hide her face which turned as red as a cherry tomato. I turned my head again at the sight of her chuckling and shaking her head as she made her way back to dry floor.

“What was that!” I heard Danielle playfully call out from the benches. Hermes himself chuckled over the speaker.

“God. Okay, next is Joanna Gutierrez of Spain, skating 'Jingo' by Carlos Santana.”

“Alright, Joanna!” I called out, clapping. I returned to Misha who pushed her hair back behind her head.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I had no idea I was going to that, though.”

“Yeah, but who did, though?” I did what I could to console her as we watched Joanna perform her practice session. She really reminded me of Mom with her complexion and dark hair. From that spot, I could see his prominent dark eyelashes and I thought about Dad, and how he always found Mom so beautiful. I wondered how she was doing over in France and Belgium right then and if everything was going okay.

After Joanna came Tippytoe, who skated to “Magical Mystery Tour” from the Beatles. During the bridge, she stopped on the toes of her skates and took three big steps back. She followed it up with a big pirouette with her arms up the air as if doing ballet.

“Tippytoe,” muttered Misha.

“Tippytoe!” I echoed as she performed a Fire Bomb before returning to the benches.

“Next up is Danielle Park of the United States of America, skating to 'Black Dog' by Led Zeppelin.”

“Wow,” I breathed out.

“I know, right? You don't think of Zeppelin as skating music, but we'll see how she does it.”

Danielle went in sync with the music, starting and pausing with the starts and stops before rapidly picking up speed to do the Fire Bomb by the start of the second verse. She fell on her left hip but climbed right back up.

“I see her brilliance here,” noted Misha.

“Me, too. I think she's going to have to train a bit more, though.”

She skated for a bit more before going off into the bench area.

“Next up is Sakura Ryuzaki of Japan, skating to 'Now I'm Here' by Queen.”

Misha and I both clapped and cheered. Down below, Sako took one last word from Coach Clarke before doubling back onto the ice. She waved at us with a big grin as she wound her way towards the middle of the rink.

Even from a distance, I noticed the nice curve making up the bridge of her nose. The light reflecting onto the ice shone onto her face so she resembled a porcelain kabuki doll.

She seemed to glide over the ice; at one point, I could see she had her eyes closed and I knew the music was guiding her. Sako pirouetted about and pivoted her knees so as to exert her strong, sinewy thighs. I was spellbound by her, especially once she made her first Fire Bomb, then her second, and then her third. There was something primal and down to the ground about Sako's skating and yet there was something beautiful about it. She spun in circles and spirals, making herself known. She was indeed here and taking my breath away all the while. She returned to the benches with her head bowed. I leaned back in the chair feeling as though I had just witnessed a work of art being made right before my eyes.

“Next up is Izzy Torres of the United States of America, skating to 'Violet Hill' by Coldplay.”

Even though Izzy was fun to watch, and her skating was graceful and clean, almost delicate, Sako's performance had been firmly etched inside my mind. Suddenly everyone had to live up to her. Suddenly everyone had to have the same ferocity. But Izzy had such control, and her skating was almost sweet, like her. Even her return to the benches had a sweet feeling to it.

“And last but definitely not least is Jeannie Lee of Canada, and her act 'I Dream of Jeannie'. Skating to 'New Orleans is Sinking' by the Tragically Hip.”

“Damn, these girls are skating to some badass music,” remarked Misha.

“Right? I mean, Queen, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Yes—”

Jezza's skating was rather mature. She controlled and finessed everything so much and so well that she only stumbled twice. At that point, Misha and I returned down the stairs to meet up with everyone once again.

“Man alive—!” I heard Jezza declare upon her return to the benches. “Egad—” She turned her head to see Misha and me descending the stairs and hurrying towards them.

“That was hell of a sound you made earlier,” she told me, out of breath, as we came closer.

“Nah, that was her,” I pointed at Misha, who ran a hand through her hair.

“I guess I just got so enveloped in it and—”

Sako emerged from the other room with her hair pushed back from her face. I cared less if she was sweaty: I threw my arms around her.

“You were incredible!” I exclaimed. “You were amazing! And beautiful! And powerful! Oh—”

She set her hands on my face and grinned at me.

“Oh, I forgot to ask you,” she started as Sara appeared from behind her with her hair pushed back from her face.

“What's that?”

“What are you and Michelle doing for sleeping tonight?”

“We were just thinking of sleeping in our truck. We—couldn't really get a room.” I had to think of an excuse because Sara stood right there.

“No, no, no. I don't want you to sleep in your truck, on a hard sheet of metal that will destroy your back. Come stay with me, Meredith. Please.”

“Yeah, Michelle, come stay with me!” insisted Sara. “I will make a space for you in my room!”

“Oh, God,” pleated Misha, “that's so sweet of you ladies, but I don't want to do that to you.”

“No, no, I insist,” Sako lowered her voice and her hands to my shoulders, “I will be good, I promise.”

“And I will be good,” Sara echoed behind us.

“You ladies may as well take up the offer,” Jezza pointed out as she wiped off the sweat from her brow with a white towel. “That's very sweet of them.”

“I don't see why not,” I kindly replied with a shrug.

They took one last brief meeting with Coach Clarke first, and then they made the return back to their rooms at the nice looking hotel down the street. Misha and Sara linked up arms and Sako put her arm around me as we strode out of the arena, then the lobby of the Moda Center, and into the darkness and the torrential rain. I pulled my hood over my head; Sara tried to cover Misha's head with her coat sleeve as she unlocked the back hatch so we could drag our bags out of the bed. Sako held the door for us and we filed into the spacious front lobby lit with low silvery lights.

She and I stayed on the third floor, whereas Misha and Sara took the room right beneath us on the second floor. I removed my hood as I peered about the small cozy room with a sink and a coffee maker to my right and a big spacious bathroom to my left.

There was only one bed with pure white sheets, and it took me a few seconds to realize she had shoved the ugly top cover off of the surface. She had two dark red overnight bags piled on top of each other next to the small heavy oak dresser in the corner. But what tied the room together was the small blue and red Beanie Baby bears nestled in between the two fluffy white pillows at the head of the bed. She showed me a shy little grin.

“I know, it's—not much.”

“I'll take it, though. I don't mind just the one bed with the little bears—you are such a cutie!”

A light pinkish tint bloomed over her face as she ran her fingers through her hair. The smirk on her face twisted into an awkward expression.

“I'm going to shake a tower,” she declared. The room fell silent as I realized what she just said and I burst out laughing. She flashed a devilish grin at me.

“Okay—go shake all those towers—” She strode over to her overnight bags for a bottle of golden yellow shampoo before she stepped into the bathroom, clicked on the light, and closed the door. I set down my overnight bag next to the dresser and unzipped my coat. I draped the coat over the back of the chair behind the small heavy table at the foot of the bed when I heard the bathroom door quietly click open. I glanced over at the half inch wide crack in between the door and the threshold, and the little sliver of the brightly lit mirror on the bathroom wall.

I could just see that she had taken off her shirt to reveal her slender, snowy white upper body and small bright pink brassiere. She had a beautiful slim belly; not a blemish one appeared on her skin. I had no clue what she was doing until she moved over a bit for something.

I watched her turn around and it was there I saw her wearing black underwear. It felt like I was violating her privacy as I stepped away from the bathroom door. I swore we were just friends. But I saw her bare body and her underwear.

Water began running on the other side of the wall. I pictured her stripping. I tried to shake that image out of my head but I kept seeing her climbing inside of the shower. I imagined the water cascading over her naked body. I shook my head.

No, no, no, no, no. I didn't want to think like that.

I opened my eyes to see the bed. There was only one bed.

I vowed to keep my hands to myself as I sat down next to the pillow near the headboard. I took off my shoes and my socks before turning around to peer back at the little bears nestled in between the pillows. It was difficult for me to think like that with them there behind me. I wanted to see Sako based after my first impression of her: a sweet girl. A sweet girl in love with her work as a figure skater and now, who brought me in from the rain.

Misha's muffled laughter emerged from beneath my feet.

 _It can't be_ that _funny_ , I thought. _Whatever Sara just said right then, it can't be that funny_.

There was a loud clanging noise on the other side of the wall between me and the bathroom, followed by Sako cursing in Japanese.

 _Probably dropped something_ , I told myself right as I heard her mutter “—effing soap—”

I chuckled at that and it was there I began to follow with Misha's logic.

I reached back to pick up the first bear on the left, which was small enough for me to cradle in both hands. The fabric was soft and delicate; I brought it up to my face to pick up the smell of bed sheets and honey. I closed my eyes to better pick up the smell of skin, her smell.

There was no way I could see Sako in that manner. She had too much of a soft side and too much of a mischievous glimmer in her eye, like a little girl up to no good. I kept the bear close my face as I argued with myself. I did it anyways; I pictured her naked and soaking wet, and with the only thing separating me from her slim hourglass body was a single wall. It started to bother me less once I heard her speak through the silence.

“Ah, I see you have met the apple of my eye.”

I opened my eyes to see her leaning against the edge of the wall. She had pushed her black hair into her towel atop her head. Little droplets of water dotted the spot on the right side of her chest, right underneath her collar bone and above the cup of her bra; her white skin looked soft and clean. I picked up the faint aroma of scent on her slender neck and shoulders. She had wrapped a clean white towel around her svelte waist.

“I have always loved Beanie Babies, and teddy bears in general.”

“You're like a sweet little girl,” I blurted out.

“Not as of a little bit ago, no.”

He saw me. Gracious God.

“I feel terrible,” I confessed.

“Don't,” she assured me, striding past me towards her overnight bags. I could not see what she was doing until she stood back up again with her phone in hand.

“I saw you in your underwear—do not feel ashamed.”

“That's right, you did! And it's on your phone—”

“Indeed. I dream about it every night. I often think of how beautiful you are.”

She hovered above me with her phone in hand; her waist was so close to my face, like I could plant a sweet little kiss there, right there underneath her belly button. The towel hung above her hip bones so as to accentuate that part of her body; I made out the outlines of her thighs emerging from underneath the towel and I knew that if she dropped the towel on the floor, she would be almost naked in front of my face.

“I think of how beautiful you are, too,” I confessed in a low voice.

Sako showed me a shy little smile before returning to her overnight bags to put on some clothes. I kept my head bowed and my eyes closed as she changed into clean underwear and pajama bottoms; a part of me wanted to turn around and catch her in the nude but I needn't risk it right at that moment.

She tapped on my shoulder and I turned around to see her sweetly smiling at me from the pillow: she had merely put on black silk pajama, the shirt of which she had opened near her collar. She gestured for me to come closer. I snuggled down next to her and the Beanie Babies. She had to climb out of bed once again for something to eat because she did not want to go to bed on an empty stomach.

“I want to ask—why did you ask me to take a picture of myself in my underwear?” I asked her as she gobbled up three big balls of rice from a black plastic platter.

“Why?”

“Yeah.”

She swallowed down a fourth rice ball but fell into silence for just a moment. I began to wonder if that did something internally to her when she spoke again:

“I like you.”

She blinked several times while her face turned bright red.

“I like you. I mean that, too. It's not common for us in Japan to like the same sex, but it's true. I want to be closer to you, Meredith.”

I licked my lips. I had no clue where to go with this other than nestle closer to her and the teddy bears.

“Eat up that fifth rice ball,” I encouraged her, “and we can try and get close tonight.”

She cracked a smile and reached for the last one. She nibbled on one side before she began eating the whole thing at a regular pace. Sako reached up to switch off the light which in turn engulfed the whole room in darkness. I heard her swallow the rice ball before she sank down next to me. I had no clue if she was still awake by the time I fell asleep.


	8. An American Poet

Waking… Waking…

I need my journal. I need my journal for this part.

Soft flesh next to me,

I need a spot to see.

A warmth, a beating heart,

both leading me back to start.

I'm touching her body,

I'm feeling her heart,

she's soft and delicate,

yet moves like a dart.

Don't open your eyes, she's alive

and feeling down inside her own mind.

Everything is so gentle,

everything is so sweet…

She looks like a doll,

with her soft little face,

and eyes snapped shut,

and her nose with its perfect curve,

and a little tendril of hair,

down in her face.

The skin on her shoulder

is like the perfect silk;

her chest is strong,

and her stomach and hips

are perfect for touching.

There's more here, though,

more than just skin,

more than just flesh…

Don't wake up, angel,

I need you to sleep,

to drop your wall,

to soften before me,

so I can love you even more.

You are more than what you are,

a girl on ice, a woman from Japan,

you are love.

I wonder about my sister

and the little lady she's with.

Are they still asleep

or are they intertwined like us?

Are they awake

and are they behaving

or are they doing what the

numbers forbid?

There's something surrounding us—something horrific—

there's an oncoming that feeling I don't want to know.

No, I won't think like that,

this is too precious and

too delicate to

take from me. To

take from her.

But I feel it

coming on

anyways.

You see it well,

underneath it all, even the

zenith of the ground.

Use the salt there,

right there,

underneath the pain.

How does it feel,

after it cleans and heals

now, after

you've done it to

us.

Somewhere far from

here, you will pay

or suffer with us.

More of the same spiel,

after what you've done to

us, and to her,

now—it's coming down

on you.

Look for the key…

the key to let it be.

I can feel her

inside

my stomach,

inside

my lungs,

inside

my throat,

inside

my skin,

in between

my hips,

inside

of everything.


	9. This Old House

Sako and I met up with Sara and Misha down in the lobby for breakfast: they were seated across from each other at a little black table on the far side of the cozily lit room, both with plates full of food before them. I only paid attention to them when Sako stepped away to fetch a plate for herself at the long buffet table on the left side of the room. I promised to join her soon as I took a seat next to Misha.

“So how'd it go?” I asked them as Misha sipped from her mug of coffee.

“We played Spin the Bottle with Gideon's Bible,” she promptly replied; she glanced over at Sara who winked at her as her mouth was full of blueberry bagel. “It was—rather strange doing so, twirling it about on the floor. But there was nothing else to do the job so we used the Good Book.”

I peered back at Sako, whose hand hovered over a selection of muffins and scones. I smiled at the sight of her fingers wriggling a bit as she faced the choice for one or the other. On the other hand, I still could not believe she let me fall asleep next to her. I thought of speaking to her alone, away from Misha and Sara's united gaze.

I climbed to my feet and strode towards the one end of the buffet table with stacks of white ceramic plates accompanied with paper napkins. I took some sliced fruit, a blueberry muffin, and a couple of sausage links before meeting up with her at the edge of the table.

“Hi,” I whispered to her.

“Hi,” she showed me a grin as she poured himself a cup of black tea.

“May I tell you something?”

“Of course.”

“I really liked getting close to you last night. I hope we can keep this up.”

She showed me a thoughtful expression.

“I hope we can, too. You know, I've been thinking—”

She peered past me at Misha and Sara; I turned my head to see them talking about something in low voices.

“It's okay, they can't hear us,” I assured her.

“Anyways, I have been thinking since we woke up this morning—if you would like to go out to dinner some time. Just you and me. We needn't my parents there or Michelle and Sara with us.”

I was taken aback a bit.

“I'd love to. What did you have in mind?”

“I am not sure. That is the other question I had for you is where would like to go? I am not familiar with Brennen but I am curious on you feel about it.”

I thought back to all the date nights my parents had in the past; one in particular was a low dark wooden building about a mile down the street from Uncle Martin's house, merely referred to as “This Old House.” It used to be an old house but was condemned in the 1960s: I had always heard a man murdered his wife and then himself and supposedly their ghosts and the spirits of their three children haunt the building but neither of my parents had ever seen any ghosts; after nearly thirty years, a family from Portland bought it out, renovated the place and reopened it as an elegant restaurant when our parents married in 1993. I remembered Dad always told Misha and me that restaurant was the number one reason they ever made the drive up to Brennen from Salem, otherwise they just went out to eat in town or drove all the way up to Portland.

“There's a restaurant my parents used to go to on some date nights when my dad was alive,” I told her, “called This Old House, about a mile from Uncle Martin's. It's classy but not like—stuffy or anything like that. We can wear nice clothes but nothing too posh, though.”

“Oh, great! I do have a nice dress so…”

“You can look lovely for me.”

“I can look lovely for you. And you can look—” He took my hand and lightly kissed the back. “—even more beautiful for the both of us.”

I showed her a sly grin.

“What day would you like to go out?”

“Er—I have the next three days off and then practice every day until Friday. I have Saturday free. I also like to have dinner early. You know, it's easier on my stomach. Those rice balls I had last night before bed came back into my chest this morning…”

“Aw! Well—how about five o'clock Saturday?”

“That sounds good by me. Come with me—” She set her free arm around my shoulder and guided me back to Misha and Sara's table. I heard her wheezing a bit as we took our seats but she fetched up a heavy sigh and cleared her throat a couple of times before it stopped. Sara gave the three of us bracelets with black, white, and bright green beads before showing us the one on her left wrist, and I knew we were in the thick of it.

****************************************

Misha and I gave them both big hugs before they boarded the bus back to Salem. After putting our overnight bags into the bed, we climbed into the truck and made the drive home to Brennen. I gazed out the windshield and Misha's window at the wispy rain clouds trying their best to obscure Mount Hood off in the distance. I told her about my date with Sako next Saturday at This Old House and she clapped her hands with joy.

“I'll drive you down to Salem to pick her up,” she vowed. “Keep up the excuse with Uncle Martin?”

“May as well. Just so long as he keeps buying into it. Remember that time he asked us if he was going to meet our friends?”

“I think about that all the time. I also think about keeping up our act towards her, and Sara, too. I can easily think of scenarios to throw at Sara and she just eats them right up. It both greatly disappoints and relieves me that she's like that.”

“How does that disappoint you? I mean, I can totally see relief but not disappointment.”

“That tells me she's suggestive. Like—Sako seems like a questioning fellow, like she can read between the lines and know when something's up, kind of like how you are. Sara takes my word for it as is, without question and without prejudice. So it's actually a really good thing I didn't tell her about Uncle Martin. You know, who knows how she'd react to his—you know—”

“His shit.”

“Yeah!”

We were quiet the rest of the way back to Brennen and the house on Fourth Street, where Thumbelina was driving the other way down the street. I had a bad feeling when I saw her round the far corner down the street. I hoped she never saw us in her mirror as Misha switched off the engine.

When we walked into the house, Uncle Martin was passed out on the couch in the living room. We sneaked past him to the staircase, trying hard not to wake him. I decided to hide the bracelet in the attic in any case he grew suspicious of us. Once we reached the second floor, I whispered to Misha about it and she handed me her bracelet. I continued up the stairs towards the third floor, the attic, with our bracelets in hand. I stood before a low, stuffy hallway with a spotless ivory white carpet. Stacks of junk he had brought up here for who knows how long lined either side of the hall. I strode past a few rickety old black chairs until I spotted a little faded green box behind an unlocked long narrow black case caked in dust, both of which lay on the floor. I stepped over the case to pick up the box and blow off the dust on the lid.

Several musty blank leaves of paper lined the inside; I tucked our bracelets into a corner underneath two of the leaves of paper before closing the lid and setting the box back down on the floor next to the case. I caught a whiff of salt, like the airborne salt I would smell coming from the ocean. I peered down at the black case on the floor and stepped back over it before crouching down before the locks. I set one knee on the floor to ease the pressure on my ankles. I was about to open the case when Misha's voice caught me off guard.

“Meredith?” she whispered from the stairwell.

“Yes?” I answered in a whisper.

“You may want to come back down again—he woke up.”

I closed the case the rest of the way before scrambling to my feet. I crept back to the stairs, and returned to my room, and closed the door.

**************************************

We managed to convince him that we would be having dinner at another friend's house on Saturday night. While I prepared my little black dress for that evening, Misha and Sara sent messages to one another: she believed it to be too risky to have a distinct ringtone for both girls so she kept her phone on vibrate. Thus whenever we came back home from school, her room fell completely silent except for the occasional giggle through the wall.

It still struck me as odd that Mom never called or sent us anything from Europe. Misha agreed with me on it, but she assured me that everything was fine on her end.

On Friday, Sako sent me a message asking if we were still on track for the next night and I replied yes. It was the first time she said anything to me since we met up with them in Portland, so I asked her if everything was alright on her end.

“Oh, yes. Just been busy… I was finally able to contact my other coach Francine in Seattle. She organized for Shinza, me, Jo, and all of us to go up there in December for Olympic level training.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Jo?” I wrote back. I waited for a minute before “Mellowship Slinky” played out again.

“It's what I call Joanna.”

“Oh, I see! So, all the way up in Seattle, really?” I hit “send” and set down the phone on the desk for me to return to my journal. It would be another five minutes before she replied back with “Mellowship Slinky” reminding me.

“Yeah. It'll be all of us—the whole Skating Club and then some—a week before Xmas, too, which means you and I may not see one another as much then.” She included a disappointed emoticon after that. I sighed through my nose as I thought about what to reply back to her.

“Well…” I began, “I'll enjoy our time together then. Actually, if anything, I think we both should.” I sent it to her and placed the phone back down on the desk. She never replied back but I assumed, and hoped, she felt the same way.

******************************************

I put on my little black dress with a short skirt hemmed with lace which brushed against the spot above my knee and in little black slippers. I included my derby hat to bring the outfit together and I remembered how much Sako loved the hat.

Uncle Martin had a date night the night before and had not returned to the house that day; we both knew they could very easily be down the street from us; that afternoon, Misha and I hurried out to the truck with our purses and bounded out the driveway. We rushed away from there in the case of either Uncle Martin or Thumbelina driving up to the house and stopping us in our tracks. We headed down the highway towards Salem and Orchard Heights with the sun bearing down on our right side through a thin filmy layer of clouds.

It had rained the night before and it was supposed to rain again that night and then the following night but I figured Sako and I would be down with dinner by the time the moisture rolled into the area.

We crossed the river and returned to the old neighborhood once more. Misha parked in front of our house instead of turning around and parking before the curb of the Ryuzakis' house.

“I kind of want to go in there and hang out while you guys go to dinner,” she confessed, staring at the dark front windows. “Only problem with that is how else are you guys going to get there?”

“Yeah, I don't drive and neither does she. At least, as far as I know—there she is.”

Sako strode down the sidewalk across the corner from us, wearing a slinky black dress with a white silk trimming lined with blue and violet lace flowers and a matching corsage on her left wrist. Her hair had been nicely combed back from her pale face; she carried another corsage of three bright pink plum blossoms in her right hand. I climbed out of the cab right as she glanced either way before crossing the street. She showed me a grin as she padded over the pavement.

“Hey, gorgeous, you need a ride?” I playfully asked her.

“Indeed I do.” She gestured for me to hold out my arm. I showed her my left wrist and she slid the other corsage over my hand and gently placed it there beneath the base of my palm. I leaned forward and planted a light kiss on her right cheek; her neck smelled of freshly brewed black tea.

Misha grinned at her from the cab. Sako smiled back at her before climbing into the middle seat next to her; she gently patted the side of her face as part of greeting. I climbed in next to Sako and shut the door behind me.

“So how are things?” I asked her as we headed back to the freeway. “How are your parents? How's your sister?”

“My parents are doing alright,” she promptly replied. “Sakura got a photography job here in Salem. And—you know. I'm preparing for the trip to Seattle next month.”

“Oh, yeah, that's right!” recalled Misha. “Sara told me about that the other day. I told him I'm going to milk every minute she and I are together because we're going to be apart for a while.”

“I'm going to love every minute of this evening,” she promised to me. I pressed the side of my head against the side of her head as we sped up the freeway back to Brennen. We were about to turn off at the first off ramp when I recognized Thumbelina's car speeding along on the other side. My heart skipped several beats.

“Was that freaking Thumbelina?” Misha rose her voice as the barrier of the freeway rose up as we headed down the pavement towards the street down below.

“It was!” I declared.

“I don't think she saw us, though. It is getting dark after all. But it's hard to say…” Her voice trailed off. I brought a hand to my mouth. I felt Sako grip onto my left hand; her fingers quivered as part of caressing the skin. I turned my palm over so as to entwine our fingers. I kept our hands out of sight the whole way to This Old House, the low dark wooden building with warmly lit front windows on either side of a bright red front door protected by a long low awning. Misha parked before the front of the awning and yanked on the parking brake.

“So what are you going to do while we're in there?” asked Sako as I opened the door and picked up my purse from the floor.

“I think I'll just hang out around back,” admitted Misha; I climbed out onto the dark pavement with my purse over my shoulder, “you know, to stay out of sight in case Thumbelina or Uncle Martin sees me parked here. I have my phone so I'll be talking to Sara. I also brought a sketchbook, some pencils, and a head light with me. Meredith, do you have money?”

“I do, yes!”

“Okay! Have fun, you two.”

She closed the truck door behind her before wheeling around to link elbows with me. The two of us strolled up to the front door together and then she held it open for me. I stepped into the warmly lit front lobby with a hard dark wooden floor, and ivory walls and a low ceiling, both of which were illuminated by candlelight.

The waitress in a red shirt guided us into the cozy room on our left occupied with two other families and to the small black square table with cream colored napkins, salt and pepper shakers, and a jar of sugar before the front window. I gazed out the window to the street and I wondered if Thumbelina or Uncle Martin could find out about us. I set my purse down on the floor by my feet. Sako and I both started by ordering glasses of water; I asked for a cup of coffee where she wanted black tea.

“You sure do like your tea,” I pointed out as soon as she walked away.

“Well, of course. It wakes me up without it being as potent as coffee. That is not to say I do not like coffee.”

“You just prefer tea better! I see. So I want to ask you about something.”

“Yes?”

“Remember when Misha and I had dinner at your parents' house, and at one point, there was a book that fell onto the floor. If I recall correctly, it was about tantric practices.”

“And?” She looked confused.

“Is there anything you'd like to tell me?”

The waitress returned with our drinks. We both thanked her before she stepped away once again to let us read over the menus. She poured a spoonful of sugar into the gray bone china cup of tea and gently stirred. I mixed in some cream into the black mug of black coffee when she spoke up once more.

“Anything I'd like to tell you?” she repeated.

“Yes.”

“About that.”

“Yes.”

“Well—if you must know, Meredith—I read about—tantric practice—to help me with how I see myself.”

I was taken aback.

“Wait, how you see yourself?”

“Yes—” She glanced off to the side to check if the other groups of people were eavesdropping.

“Meredith, I—I often feel nervous before a skate. Like—I can't do it. I always feel as though I'm going to do terrible and let down my coaches and my parents.”

“ _You_?” I was stunned.

“Oh, yes. But reading has helped me return to myself, to my body and outside of my head. Reading about it has also—er—taught me some other things—”

She was interrupted by the waitress once more; she asked for baked salmon with saffron rice and green beans whereas I ordered gnocchi with sliced chicken. We were left alone again which left me to speak up once again.

“Taught you some other things? Like what?”

She glanced off to the side again which allowed me to take a drink of the rich, beany coffee.

“Making love. Having sex while connecting with your own flesh and everything you hold dear to you within.”

“Tantric sex.”

“Exactly! It only makes sense, too. It has influenced my culture and my country as well as other parts of Asia.”

“Does Sara—”

“Yes. Yes, she does. One time I brought the book with me just out of sheer curiosity and I showed it to her. It took her a couple of times to—heat up to it, but he finally did. Sara and I both know how to—you know—” She winked at me before taking a sip from her tea. I raised an eyebrow as I picked up the coffee mug but didn't take a drink. I remembered what Misha had told me and I knew she was right about everything. Sako wanted me and she wanted me for herself. I had an idea right at that moment.

“May I suggest,” I began, carefully choosing my words, “that when the four of us get together again, that we plan a little road trip.”

She set down the tea cup with his eyebrows questioningly raised.

“Where are you going with this, Meredith?”

“I'm saying… since you ladies have some tricks up your sleeve, we should get alone some time. You and me, Sara and Misha.”

“Like a party perhaps?”

“Kind of. If you consider a sex party a party.”

She nearly gagged on her tea. She blinked several times and jerked her head back to regain her composure. I folded my arms, and leaned forward, and stared at her right in the eye all the while.

“Are you okay?” I asked her in a low voice.

“Yes. It's just—really?”

“Yeah. We could go somewhere remote, away from prying curious eyes because there's no way we could do it here with Uncle Martin and Thumbelina around. When we go back out to the truck later, we should tell Misha and hopefully she'll tell Sara and she'll be on board with it. I know you want to get closer to me, Sako. I want to get closer to you, too. I also hope—you can—you know—teach me a few things.”

Her eyes widened in response right as the waitress with our food. She bowed her head to take a whiff of her piece of salmon which had a brownish crust on top dotted with pepper and pieces of rosemary; she unfolded her napkin and set it over her lap. I did the same as the smell of the cheese sauce covering the gnocchi filled my nose. We picked up our forks in unison and proceeded to eat.

“I have a question, Meredith,” she started again after swallowing a bite of rice.

“Yes?”

“What is Sara going to do, though? I mean, she's not even eighteen yet. At least you and I both are of age.”

“Not sure. We can assume that they'll behave themselves but that's just an assumption, though. I know my sister, too: she's got a definite dark side but she knows when and how to behave. Sara, it's harder to say.”

We fell back into silence so as to continue eating our dinner. I thought about Sara and Misha together and wondered if they truly stood to be a good match for each other. As far as I could tell they did indeed like each other; they often messaged one another, just like Sako and me. It was just… Misha had barely turned twenty and Sara was still fifteen. A legal adult with a boy of high school age.

 _Age is just a number_ , I reassured myself as I swallowed down my gnocchi and took another drink of coffee. _Age is just a number and surely they'll think of something_.

I stared glanced up at Sako, who rested her chin on her hand and gazed on at me from across the table. She still resembled to a sweet little doll, with her pale round face and those big hooded dark eyes darting over my chest, my shoulders, and my face. I pictured her in the shower once again, with the water cascading over every curve and nuance of her naked body. I smirked at my own idea and began to wonder about the flavor of her skin. When Misha and I were coming of age, Mom told us every human being has his and her own distinctive flavor and aroma and if someone tickled all five of our senses, including those two, then we have no choice but to fall in love and be with them. She had read about the love of flesh, but I wondered if there was more to it.

She had to tell me more.

I wanted her to tell me more. The fact he kept it a secret made me wonder about it. I hoped she would open up more once we organized our little trip, that is, if Sara and Misha were on board with it.

Sako took another sip of his tea, and never took her eyes off of me for a second. Prince's “Let's Go Crazy” played out from my purse down on the floor for just a few seconds.

“What was that?” asked Sako, raising an eyebrow.

“Sara texting me. I have songs for ringtones for both of you. He has 'Let's Go Crazy' by Prince, you have 'Mellowship Slinky' by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Both really sexy songs. Misha just has straight up vibrate.”

“Michelle vibrates?”

“She vibrates,” I giggled at that. The waitress poured me a bit more coffee and I mixed in some more cream. I peered up at her gaze back at me as she ate her fish and rice.

“Something you'd like to share with me?” I sweetly asked her.

“No. I am just—watching you. It is hard to believe that your uncle is as abhorrent as he is. You and your sister are among some of the kindest and most hospitable Sara and I have met here in America. I hope we can meet your mother sooner rather than later.”

“I hope you both can, too, whenever she gets a hold of us from Europe. Misha says international and collect calls are expensive so it's understandable that she hasn't yet. But Mom would love you especially, given you're such a sweetie.”

She showed me a nervous smile as her face turned bright pink.

Soon we finished our dinner and our tea and coffee. I offered to pay our bill and leave a tip for the waitress. As we headed back out the front lobby to the door, I stopped Sako in place to check Sara's message. I took my phone out of my purse; she stared at my hand with one eyebrow slightly raised and her hand on the panel of the door.

“What did Sara have to say?”

“She says 'Michelle sent me this beautiful sketch she did of you and Sako just now'—this was, you know, twenty minutes ago. And then he asks 'have you seen it?' And he sent it—”

I opened Misha's photograph taken on her phone: she had drawn scratchy, realistic renditions of me and Sako united in a French kiss. I examined closer to see she had drawn both of us naked. Our naked bodies were pressed against each other. She had a hand on my hip and I had my fingers in her hair on the back of her head.

I rotated my hand around to show her the drawing. She knitted her eyebrows together before her eyes widened and she clasped a hand to her mouth.

“God, it's like—” her voice was muffled by her hand.

“It's like she read my mind,” I finished for her. “Come on, let's go see her—”

She pushed open the front door and we headed out to the cold, damp night. We strode side by side to the left side of the restaurant by the golden yellow light of the porch light next to the front window. I peered around the corner at a big dark green dumpster and a dark shadow. Sako hovered next to my head: her breath smelled of tea and rice. We both hesitated right there when a glimmer of blue-white cut through the darkness on the other side of the dumpster. I led her down the dark alleyway to the truck, which Misha had hid out of sight from the street.

In the dim light, I recognized the faint outline of the camper shell. We skirted along the side of the truck to the passenger window and Misha drawing in her sketchbook with the head lamp pressed over her forehead. I reached up and knocked on the window pane. She raised her head and shone the light in our faces. I shielded my eyes with my hand.

There was a low _click_ from inside. Sako opened the door and the overhead light bathed the cab in bright yellow light. She slid into the middle and I followed in the passenger seat. I kept the door open so Misha could see what she was doing: she clicked off the headlight, and closed her sketchbook, and inserted both underneath her seat. I shut the door right which engulfed us in total darkness.

I heard her turn the key and switch on the engine. We idled for a few seconds until she lifted the parking lot and we began to go around the back of This Old House to the street.

“So how'd it go?” she finally asked us.

“It was lovely,” I promptly replied, “also Sara showed us the drawing you did of us.”

“She—She did?”

“Yeah. It's funny that happened, too, because I suggested going on a little day trip with sweet Sako here. Just the four of us, to a secluded place where we can be alone without the threat of Uncle Martin and Thumbelina looming over us.”

“Really? Like a 'romantic getaway' of sorts?” We pulled up to the driveway.

“Yeah, exactly! We just want to know if you and him would like join us.”

“I'd love to. Sara and I have been getting pretty close, and I'm the only one out of the four of us who drives.”

“We also would like to know,” Sako chimed in, “on where you'd like to go.”

“Well, let's see—” She looked both ways through the windshield before turning left down the street to return to the freeway.

“Seattle's a little far—and you guys are going up there soon anyways. There's Portland and we can do all manner of things up there. I hear all kinds of good things about Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia. It's not too far from Portland, either.”

“You'd be driving a lot, though,” I pointed out as we turned onto the freeway back to Salem.

“That's true. Then there's just the Coast, like Newport and all those little towns nestled over the ocean. It'd be a straight shot from Salem to the Coast. We'd have to drive a bit to get to Newport but it wouldn't be nearly as much if we went to Portland. Okay—I'll tell Sara when we drop you off, Sako.”

We arrived back in Salem in about ten minutes. As we crossed the river into Orchard Heights, I thought about when to take our trip. Misha headed down the dark street, turning around before the Ryuzakis' house and parking at the curb.

“When are we taking our trip?” I asked them.

“Well, let's see. Here it is, the beginning of November and nearly midterms for us. Perhaps in a couple of weeks, like the weekend before Thanksgiving maybe? It'd be busy if we went that holiday weekend.”

“That sounds good by me,” Sako piped up.

“Okay. It's a date!” The three of us laughed.

I walked Sako up to the front step, where the porch light shone pale yellow light over the lush front yard. We stood opposite each other before the front door and underneath the awning.

“So—uh, give everyone my love,” I told her, “and I'll call you tomorrow. I'll find a quiet spot if I must.”

She gazed on at me, this time with a thoughtful expression on her face. I watched her nibble on his bottom lip. I knew she plotted something: I could feel it.

“Is there… something you'd like to tell me?”

To my right, I heard Misha talking, probably on the phone to Sara. Sako stepped forward and loomed in front of my face; her neck still smelled good. She stared into my eyes as she leaned in and lightly kissed me on the mouth. Her lips were soft, silky, and tasted of tea and something else, something that wasn't food.

“There will be more of that,” she whispered to me, “I promise.”

She stepped back to open the door and enter the warm house. I headed back down the walkway to the curb and the truck with her taste, her aroma, and her touch with me.


End file.
